


Love Against the Karaoke Heavens

by skaralding



Series: Love Against the Karaoke Heavens [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: BDSM, Begging, Chatting & Messaging, Chinese webnovel tropes, Desperation, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, From Sex to Love, Gaming, Internet Famous, Karaoke, M/M, Overweight, Rimming, Semi-Public Sex, Service Top, Slice of Life, Smut, Topping from the Bottom, Tsunderes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-05-02 04:46:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 73,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19192111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skaralding/pseuds/skaralding
Summary: If Xi was looking for love—which he isn’t—the very last place he’d think to find it is in the chatroom of his variety stream. Still, it finds him anyway, in the form of a guy shameless enough to defy the heavens.Features chatroom flamewars, silly banter, hot smut and an overabundance of misused tildes, all in a futuristic setting. Inspired by the author’s deep love for danmei, kpop, and internet slang. All fluff, with any angst just a seasoning to highlight the merciless sweetness. No fat anxiety included.





	1. Xi was, how do you put it, a little bit...

**Author's Note:**

> Running out of translated cnovels to read, I started to write my own. Setting is meant to be far future and handwavily multicultural; you'll notice a bunch of Korean, Chinese and Japanese internet slang and honorifics. The story is basically shameless fluff + dirty sex. Chatlogs are everywhere because why not; if their formatting leaves you confused, check the endnote of the first chapter for an explanation of what is what. Footnotes for terms some readers might not know are included; let me know if I missed anything, or didn't explain anything clearly enough, or got anything wrong.
> 
> The primary inspiration for this story was the translation of _You Boys Play Games Very Well_ , [linked here at NovelUpdates](https://www.novelupdates.com/series/you-boys-play-games-very-well/); _You Boys_ is a totally fantastic read. Many more other Chinese, Korean and Japanese webnovels went into the inspiration blender as well.
> 
> (RR verification: giant purple cows!!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xi encounters a new breed of fan.

Ling Xi was, how do you put it, a little bit…

Okay, okay, a lot. Xi-er1, Xi-baby was and had always been a round, smooth, rubbable existence; when he was young, his mother would joke aloud about how she couldn’t believe something so soft and cute had come out of her stick-like figure.

Teased in primary school, teased in secondary school, teased, okay, hounded in university, this soft, fat little bun grew a hard skin to the point of mercilessness. Apart from the roundnesses that refused to leave no matter how desperately fit he was or how much he exercised, he had (luckily?) managed to inherit his younger mother’s stunning, flawless brown skin, and his older mother’s full, pouty lips and bewitching black eyes. Probably that was why he was teased so much; rounded or not, hefty or not, he had always had the kind of presence you would expect of a true-born protagonist.

Smiling, he was incandescent; laughing, he was blinding. Frowning, he made you want to frown with him; sad, he plunged you into the depths of despair. It was not at all surprising to those who knew him that he earned a significant amount by streaming his various activities to the adoring gaze of thousands of fans. He was simply the kind of person you naturally took notice of, and that had managed to carry over even in the beginning, when he was casually on camera because his friends at that time were doing it too.

It _was_ surprising, however, in a way that became an everlasting meme to his fans, that he didn’t earn the majority of his living by showing his face here and there on and offline.

“Congrats to player LiangHeartJiong,” Xi said, unable to keep the left side of his mouth from curling up a bit, “you’re the… what’s the count again?”

> Fan A: 666th!!!2

> Fan B: Why are you young ones always so early ah3? It’s clearly the 650th

> LiangHeartJiong: …is it really that common a question 囧4

“Do you want me to be nice, or honest?”

> Fan C: Honesty is the best policy.

> Fan A: In Xi-er’s house we are all honest people.

> Fan D: Nice ah, honest ah, isn’t our Xi-er always nice when he’s honest hahaha

The formerly repressed smile of ‘our Xi-er’ gave way into a full, wicked grin, the kind of smile that could not be borne in person without the victim suffering from heart palpitations and confusion of the deepest kind. “I’ll be honest,” Xi said, keeping his eyes trained on the carrots he was slicing up, “it’s something I get asked nearly every stream, without fail.”

> LiangHeartJiong: …

> LiangHeartJiong: …Xi-er, forgiveness is good too [sweats]

“Do I look like the forgiving type?” Xi couldn’t help but ask. He made sure to look up at the camera he’d rigged to float in his kitchen just then, his grin now dimmed to a sweet smile, his eyes cold as he could make them. “Hmm?”

> Fan C: A killer!!

> Fan D: [faints]

> LiangHeartJiong: 囧囧囧

Xi couldn’t help but laugh. He didn’t often bother to be this intense on stream; pulling this kind of move too often robbed it of its power. “I’m joking, I’m joking, it’s alright. And yeah, I guess it is surprising that a guy like me could really be a nameless accountant on the side, but that’s just how it is, you know?”

Further discussion continued in the stream comments, even as he went on to slice up the twice-cooked pork he was planning to add to his indulgent stir-fry. “No, this is pretty much it,” he murmured, in response to an excited question about what else was left. “I’m hungry, I can’t be bothered to add more than this.”

> Fan C: Do you still still have those caramelized onions left over from last time?

“Yup, those are going in too.” Xi had to fight back a small smile; his older mother didn’t watch his stream much these days, but that kind of comment was exactly the sort of thing that rubbed her the wrong way. _Doesn’t it freak you out that your fans know the state of your fridge better than I do?_ She’d asked that sort of question so many times that it was a joke between them now too, just as Xi’s response was also a joke: _It’d be weirder if they **didn’t** know, considering how much they pay while they watch…_ “Fair warning to anyone new, if you don’t wanna be hungry, now’s the time to get off5.”

> Fan A: who the fuck would get off!! Isn’t this the highlight?!

> YuriGod: Only the disloyal would get off rn6 lel7

> LiangHeartJiong: Not leaving~ Not leaving~

> LiangHeartJiong: Food~ Food~

> Fan A: at least it looks like Jiong hyung8 is serious here, has the heart to be a real member of Xi-er’s army. Or is it noona9??

> LiangHeartJiong: Won’t tell~ Won’t tell~

> swearmouse: WTF do you only know how to double words you jiong f***

> mod_mayuuu: GDI you people, play nice with the noobs or else

> mod_mayuuu: that means YOU, swearmouse

> swearmouse: wtf you swore too!!! and I censored ok how is that not better!!!!!

Xi, having just glanced at the screen while watching the pan heat up with a bit of oil in it, could no longer hold back a smile. “Come on, Mayu, chill a bit. Swearie’s still under the limit.”

> Fan A: ahhhh, here it comes, the legendary nepotism

> LiangHeartJiong: ehh?? ehh??

> Fan B: Jiong-hyung ah, it’s best not to provoke that nasty mouse ah, the mouse is receiving high protection every day ah

> swearmouse: what f***ing nepotism ah! Your f*cking face B ah!!!

> **mod_mayuuu has placed swearmouse in the corner: 2-minute chat ban enforced**

> LiangHeartJiong: O_O!!

> Fan A: Didn’t i say it omg *pounds table*

> Fan A: [lol.jpg]

> mod_mayuuu: Anyone else want to join the mouse? [smile]

> Fan B: nasty mouse, no one would join

> Fan A: nasty~ mouse~

> Fan D: nasty mouse *shakes head*

> LiangHeartJiong: nasty mouse~ nasty mouse~

“Looks like our curious little jiong is blending in well,” Xi couldn’t help but say, even though he really should have been paying more attention to the carrots he was currently stirring and tossing. “Swearie, just be good, you know Mayu’s on a hair-trigger these days, right?”

> **swearmouse has slunk forth out of the corner**

> swearmouse: you always take her side!!! why not me!!!!

> YuriGod: change your name swearie, our Xi-er will comfort you for sure

> Fan A: What name change, can the heart change too? *spits*

> mod_mayuuu: I punished swearmouse already, lay off.

> [mod_mayuuu is looking sternly at Fan A]

> Fan B: *professional commentator voice* and here it is, here it is, [Nepotism Follow-up Strike]!! It’s brutal, it’s beautiful, it’s super-effective!!!

> LiangHeartJiong: are those hyungs really related to our Xi-er?

> swearmouse: who the ever-loving f*** is your hyung?! This mouse is a fierce f*ckin jiejie10 ok!

> [mayuuu’s opinion of LiangHeartJiong has taken an abrupt dive]

> LiangHeartJiong: [sweats]

> LiangHeartJiong: …forgiveness is still a way of life in this house, right?

> swearmouse: not doubling your bullsh** words again huh?? [cold laughter]

> **swearmouse has issued a Challenge to LiangHeartJiong!**

> swearmouse: what game do you like best, jiong-ah? I’ll ruin it for you.

> **swearmouse has issued a Challenge to LiangHeartJiong!**

> LiangHeartJiong: haha is this really necessary [sweats]

> **swearmouse has issued a Challenge to LiangHeartJiong!**

> swearmouse: f***ing 1v1 me!! you trash hyung!!!

> LiangHeartJiong: …then I won’t be polite.

> **LiangHeartJiong has accepted swearmouse’s Challenge!**

“Ah, ah, are you guys sure you wanna keep on with that right now?” The only thing left to deal with was the rice itself, and that was missing just a drizzle of soy sauce. But from the wave of ‘delicious’ emotes that filled the sidebar of his stream, it looked like swearmouse and Jiong had already become absorbed in litigating their petty feud elsewhere. Shrugging, Xi finished off the stir fry with quick, deft, decisive movements, stirring in the carrots, twice-cooked pork and fried eggs.

The onions had already been mixed in, so all he did was stir and cut up the eggs a bit more, and give the pan one more hearty shake before turning off the heat.

> Fan B is now a monitor licker: [drools]

> YuriGod: fuck life isn’t fair, i burn everything when i cook QAQ11

> mod_mayuuu: not everyone can cook like our Xi-er, it’s okay [pat] [pat]

> YuriGod: ……

> YuriGod: you weren’t supposed to fucking agree!

> mod_mayuuu: *whispering* I have seen our great Yuri God12 burn water.

> Fan A: [dying of laughter]

> [Fan C is feeling faintly superior to YuriGod]

> [Fan B is now a monitor licker is feeling faintly superior to YuriGod]

> [GodGod is feeling faintly superior to YuriGod]

> **GodGod boldly sends forth a shower of sakura petals! Their message of beauty and hope to the channel is:** frankly, as a pure God of Gods, i have always been superior to YuriGod

“Yuri, they’re just all provoking you,” Xi said, helplessly. Hungry as he was, dishing out a big bowl of rice for himself in a hurry without spilling any of it absorbed far too much attention; by the time he could afford to look at the comment sidebar again, YuriGod and GodGod were challenging each other and exchanging their usual fierce storm of insults.

> Fan B is now a monitor licker: @LiangHeartJiong if you’re able to see this, THIS is the real nepotism

> Fan D: the gods war, the mods do nothing *SMH* 13

> LiangHeartJiong: no time~ no time~

> LiangHeartJiong: playing games~ playing games~

> Fan A: ehhhhhh? the challenge is going on??

Xi, already packing his mouth full of hot, fragrant fried rice, could only scroll up to confirm that neither swearmouse nor LiangHeartJiong had appeared in the chat since swearmouse’s contemptuous challenge.

> LiangHeartJiong: challenges aside, how’s the taste, huh, Xi-er?

Xi coughed, swallowing hastily. “Is it over already?”

> LiangHeartJiong: mostly

> LiangHeartJiong: [smirk] [smirk]

> swearmouse: you f\%*

Xi narrowed his eyes, unable to help it. Swearmouse was usually fairly uniform in how she typed out her censored words; that she wasn’t doing that right now meant she was really angry.

> swearmouse: who are you, huh? What jiong? What f&*xxing trash

> LiangHeartJiong: now~ now~

> LiangHeartJiong: sportsmanship~ sportsmanship~

> swearmouse: clearly you’re some fu**ing pro!! Food abusing14 piece of trash

> Fan A: EEEHHHHH

> Fan B is a shocked monitor licker: my god!! Our swearmouse was abused???

“Ah?” Xi couldn’t help but switch to another, private window to try and see if he could get the full story from swearmouse, only to have his lightly teasing messages ignored. “Hey, hey, what just happened?”

> LiangHeartJiong: look, look, swearmouse played well. She just fell for one of my tricks, that’s all

> swearmouse: what fxxing trick!!!

> swearmouse: rematch in FOV15 if you f*ckin dare

> Xi-er-is-good: what game did you guys play before?

> YuriGod: don’t run kids!! Answer to god!

> [Fan A demands that the disobedient kids answer to good god Xi!]

> [GodGod demands that the disobedient kids answer to good god Xi!]

> [Fan B is Fan o_O demands that the disobedient kids answer to good god Xi!]

> [Fan C is rofl demands that the disobedient kids answer to good god Xi!]

> …

> …

> Xi-er-is-good: haha it looks like they already ran off

> [mod_mayuuu is furious at the disrespect!]

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Xi said, unable to hold back a smile. “We all know how Swearie is, she’ll be back eventually.” But, an hour later, with the first bowl of fried rice long gone and YuriGod and GodGod’s ultra-lame song lyric competition having lost its charm, the brash, colourful arrogance of swearmouse was nowhere to be seen.

Poking her repeatedly in private chat only resulted in her logging off. A tactful question to Mayumi only resulted in a typed *sigh*.

[XiErXi]: hey, I’m starting to worry

[XiErXi]: what the fuck happened??

[mayuuu]: …

[mayuuu]: it might be someone from her team…

[XiErXi]: …

[mayuuu]: …

[XiErXi]: fuck

Swearmouse, a.k.a. Claire Esposito, his best friend’s foul-mouthed, always smiling younger sister, had just been promoted to the main roster for Field of Violence in _Dominance_ , a sprawling behemoth of an eSports organization that fielded teams in nearly every hot game of the moment. Dominance’s FOV team, colloquially known as ‘Dom-V’, was known to be particularly picky; Claire had put in hours upon hours of unrelenting practice and self-reflection and self-improvement just to get to the point of being invited to their training camp, and she’d only stepped up her efforts from there.

Mod_mayuuu, a.k.a. mayuuu a.k.a. Mayumi, was Xi’s cousin on his older mother’s side, and had been part training dummy and part cheerleader for Claire for years, worrying and grumbling and rhapsodising over her dogged ascent into the ranks of the FOV gods as if it were her own journey. She’d gotten increasingly strict about policing Claire’s freewheeling online behaviour this year, especially whenever she popped up in Xi’s stream, since his was the most visible stream on The Forest that swearmouse could be bothered to chat in.

[mayuuu]: she played Jiong-nim16 in Ace Space a couple times first

[mayuuu]: lost both times

[mayuuu]: hand speed17 no fucking joke, the guy was laughing at her in chat even as he won

[XiErXi]: wtf

[mayuuu]: I know, I know! That’s her speciality!!!

Xi couldn’t help but feel a little, okay more than a little bit pleased at Claire getting a taste of her own medicine. ‘Ace Space’ was one of those cute little games that hid a perplexing amount of depth; it revolved around fake tennis played by chibi characters, and though it wasn’t really fast-paced enough to reward high APM, you could bludgeon your way to victory by relying on quick reactions and good spatial awareness and hand-eye coordination.

Last spring, during Ace Space’s debut, Xi had gotten into streaming a game or three a day, simply because even a so-so player like him could manage to lose with style. As an all-ages game, Ace Space limited in-game chat to standard phrases, but of course there were ways to combine those phrases to poke fun at your opponent, and just spamming the messages could serve as a minor disruption of their focus.

Needless to say, swearmouse had thoroughly enjoyed herself during that era, challenging her fellow fans left, right, and centre, and always standing ready to carry a 3v3 or 5v5 or even temporarily taking over accounts to personally administer justice on behalf of her peers. Her current reputation as someone not to be trifled with had already been growing at that time, and her stylish kills and swear-filled jubilation had simply served to cement his fans’ view of her as one of their local gaming gods; being decisively beaten at Ace Space by some random must have infuriated her.

[XiErXi]: how many times did she lose in FOV?

[mayuuu]: … [sweatdrop]

[mayuuu]: four times in 35mins. [sweatdrop]

[XiErXi]: …omg

[mayuuu]: she let me look at the last loss

[mayuuu]: 100% a training match

“Fuck me,” Xi muttered. “That’s…” Mayumi, it had to be said, had become something of an FOV PVP expert from just the constant practising with Claire, even though she had no patience for team play and lacked the talent to improve past a certain level. If she agreed that the VOD she’d seen of Claire’s defeat by Jiong had looked like a training match, then that was most likely what it had been.

> Fan A, from the wilderness: eh?? ehhh??

> YuriGod, winner: everything ok?

“Just something unrelated,” Xi said, smiling a little. “And yeah, the alphabets are right, I’m probably gonna sign off soon.”

> Fancy Fan C: ah!! Nooo!

> GodGodSad: hey, hey, our Xi-er’s been streaming two hours already okay

> GodGodSad: Xi-er, sleep well! The rice looked super good!

> [LiangHeartJiong is salivating at the thought of leftovers]

> [LiangHeartJiong is wondering what will happen to the lonely leftover rice]

“Fridge today, my belly tomorrow,” Xi said, smiling heartlessly. “Isn’t it obvious?”

> Fancy Fan C: This!!! This is the gorgeous cruelty of our Xi-er!

> Fan A, returning from wilderness: *sigh* [heart]

> Fan B is Fan B: you, Jiong-hyung, learn well. Xi-er eats it all! Never are there exceptions!!

> LiangHeartJiong: 囧~ 囧~

> LiangHeartJiong: senior, I’ve learned 囧

> Xi-er-is-good: Actually, B’s exaggerating. I do bake-offs when I can, I send stuff out then

> LiangHeartJiong: !! OwO!

> Xi-er-is-good: Next one is in a month or so, it’s in the calendar [smile]

> LiangHeartXi: God Xi-er, this one will trouble you then [heart]~ [heart]~

> Xi-er-is-good: haha ok

Xi smiled warmly at the floating camera, waving goodbye even as he kicked off his stream shutdown script.

 _What ‘God Xi-er’,_ he thought. _Sucking up after bullying poor Swearie, these Dom-V gods really do have some fucking guts…_ Pulling up LiangHeartJiong’s, no, that’s wrong, LiangHeartXi’s ( _ugh_ ) Forest ID only took a moment; whoever was behind the ID was a typical lurker, with a handful of paltry gifts that mostly went to big entertainment-style streams. Probably, the bastard had a separate account for interaction with the more serious gaming streams; how in god’s name he’d ended up poking his head into Swearie’s long-time favourite stream was as yet a mystery, though not one that Xi couldn’t easily imagine having a disappointingly simple solution.

Swearie was still, what, was she sixteen now? Or seventeen? But she’d gone from an angry beanpole to an angry beanpole with dangerous curves over the last couple years, and her brazen attitude made her a target of the kind of lowlife shut-in that would look down his nose at ‘silly’ streams and ‘casual’ games and do anything to get one over a strong player like her.

 _What leftovers,_ Xi thought, adding a private note of ‘NO FOOD 4 U’ to LiangHeartXi’s ID. _At most, I’ll send him anything that gets burnt, and **that’s** if he fucking pays…_

* * *

* * *

  1. **‘-er’ suffix:** Chinese, means ‘son/child’, is a suffix used for a young person.↩

  2. the word for ‘6’ in Chinese sounds really similar to the word for ‘handsome/smooth’, and so spamming ‘6’ is the equivalent of praising someone/something in Chinese internet slang.↩

  3. **ah:** Not even sure I should explain this, it’s a meaningless/emphatic interjection common in Chinese, but also common in many other languages (e.g. I would feel comfortable inserting it into my speech for emphasis, and I grew up in an English-speaking country with a bunch of native languages and speakers that would comfortably do the same). It’s used here in a way typical to Chinese webnovels.↩

  4. **囧, i.e. jiong** is a once obscure Chinese character meaning a “patterned window”. Since 2008, it has become an internet phenomenon and widely used to express embarrassment and gloom, because of the character’s resemblance to a sad facial expression.↩

  5. **get off:** used in the sense of Chinese/Korean (?) internet slang that uses ‘getting off [the bus]’ to mean noping out of something, ceasing to read/follow/watch something.↩

  6. **rn:** internet slang, abbreviation for ‘right now’↩

  7. **lel:** internet slang, basically another form of ‘lol’, i.e. ‘laughing out loud’↩

  8. **hyung:** Korean word for ‘older brother’, usually used by a male speaker.↩

  9. **noona:** Korean word for ‘older sister’, usually used by a male speaker.↩

  10. **jie/jiejie:** Chinese word for ‘older sister’.↩

  11. **QAQ:** crying emoji in Chinese internet slang↩

  12. **X God, or God X:** Chinese prefix or suffix, respectful, somewhat over-praising way of addressing or referring to someone widely known as a talented expert. Mostly used on the internet, specifically in gaming, as far as I know.↩

  13. **SMH:** internet slang, abbreviation for ‘shake my head’↩

  14. **food abuse:** Chinese internet gaming slang for highly skilled players stomping on (relatively) unskilled players↩

  15. **FOV:** abbreviation for the imaginary game ‘Field of Violence’↩

  16. **‘-nim’:** Korean suffix that denotes respect↩

  17. **APM:** abbreviation of ‘actions per minute’, a video game term for the total number of actions a player can perform in a minute. High APM is often associated with skill. Often colloquially referred to as ‘ _hand speed_ ’.↩




**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chatlog formatting standard below holds throughout the story:
> 
> [NickName]: private or group chat log message (think LINE, WhatsApp, WeChat or KakaoTalk)
> 
> > different_nickname: stream chat log message 
> 
> All emoji are generally [like this], because lol if I'm going to go copy-pasting emoji throughout /o\\. And because it's way more expressive, lol.
> 
> Typed out reactions are generally *like this*.
> 
> **System messages and notifications look like this.**
> 
> [Users' in-chat reactions look like this!] Pretty sure you can do reactions like that on Asian streaming platforms, I just copied it from countless Asian webnovels because I thought it was fun ;)


	2. Battle of the Bake-off Bids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xi's new fan makes a spectacle of himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note for this chapter: 1 USD ~= 100 crystal.

A month and a half passed, mostly calmly. Swearmouse refused to return to the _Xi’s sweet spicy home_ stream for only about a week; LiangHeart-whatever never showed again, and though Mayumi fretted and groaned and seethed in private about the whole matter to Xi whenever possible, nothing seemed to come of it in real life.

Well, nothing out of the ordinary; the one time Claire deigned to discuss it with Xi, the only thing she’d say was that it’d take more than a brief bit of online hazing to keep her down. Or, in swearmouse’s words:

[swair]: that f*** thinks he’s so f**ing funny, we’ll see how the f*** he laughs when I’m main ADC…

Mayumi’s never-ending 2- and 5-minute bans had had a profound effect on Claire’s typical speech; she swore purely in asterisks now, to the extent that Xi had long since tired of poking fun at her for it. So Xi’s only reply to that declaration was:

[XiErXi]: let me know whenever you find his side accounts

[XiErXi]: he’s banned from leftovers [wink]

[swair]: haha serves him f***ing right

[swair]: buns soon ;____;? Pls??

[XiErXi]: in a bit, work kicking shit out of me rn

It was the bitter end of company tax season, and work was indeed kicking poor Xi-er’s arse up and down the street. Used as he was to having deadlines slip around this time of year, he coped by doing marathons at the start of the month and popping in for short hour-long streams on the weekends in order to meet quota for his subscribers, and he never tried to strain himself by making anything too complicated.

Mostly, he sang on stream, cooked a little, and dipped a toe into whatever new karaoke sensations caught his eye. YuriGod, GodGod and Fan B, as both his long-time friends and former k-group stalwarts, were all eager instigators and helpers whenever this kind of mood was on him; they pushed and shoved and fought each other to suggest new songs, trash or praise new groups, and wax philosophical about the changes in the industry that had grown up around karaoke hobbyists.

[yuririn]: seriously, seriously, why not ditch the bake-off this time?

[yuririn]: how long has it been since we did a group live??

[B-tha-D]: we did at christmas?

[yuririn]: SIX MONTHS AGO. [COME ON.jpg] [dances]

[XiErXi]: we don’t all have endless free time [cry-laugh]

[B-tha-D]: aren’t you just making a big thing about it like usual? We could be casual

[g.o.d.]: omg NO! Not the C word!!!

[XiErXi]: …fuck you

[yuririn]: lol can you actually be casual, xixi

[g.o.d.]: search ur heart. u know the answer

[XiErXi]: fuck you, I can be casual. I totally will

* * *

Five minutes before the four of them were scheduled to go live, Xi was already regretting his promise to be casual. He’d ended up baking anyway, since work had let him cash in his usual one-week de-stressing vacation a couple days early; he’d reasoned that, since the big baking event had been converted into a big, strictly casual singing event, he really should make up for the lack of freshly baked prizes with some pre-made goods.

Somehow, that had turned into him blitzing through a veritable cartload of three sorts of buns: sticky cinnamon rolls, HK style pineapple buns and (for local subscribers only) char siu bao1. Sneaky as he’d tried to be about the process, all of his friends and family had caught wind of it and started putting in orders, begging for shares, or just brazenly showing up out of the blue to cadge a bit of this and that. Which meant his having to, or rather, _choosing_ to go back into the trenches again, just to make sure his subscribers would have at least half a chance of grabbing a pineapple bun before his stupid family stole them all.

Having rushed through streaming and baking and packaging and labelling shit for three or four days straight, Xi was exhausted, fed up and a constant mixture of anxious and cranky. He was in the worst mood for precisely this occasion, i.e. one where he had to sing in public, and do well but not _too_ well. _Too_ well inevitably meant way too much attention, and sometimes a new and terrifying subset of fan that threw tantrums in chat when he didn’t sing every minute of a regular stream, or didn’t promise to do so. Not singing well enough meant snide comments from his haters, and a few wide-eyed expressions of hypocritical concern from the singing streamers that disliked him.

“Rest ah, rest ah,” Yuri scolded him, when he kept fidgeting on the couch. “We can’t have Good God Xi collapsing on stream, ah!”

“Fucking stop with the accent,” Bertram said, rolling his eyes. “Just how the fuck have you ever been any kind of Chinese ah?”

“What, what, it’s only you guys that use it, lah?” Yuri sneered, adjusting her digital mask for what had to be the fourteenth time. “Fuck off, man, I’ll speak how the fuck I want!”

“Guys, this is supposed to be _relaxing_ , remember?” That was Ursula, a.k.a. g.o.d., a.k.a. GodGod, and therefore the one amongst them with the largest gap between her online persona and her petite, soft-voiced reality. She also handled the majority of the rap lyrics whenever those came up; tired as Xi felt, he couldn’t help but smile a little at the thought of the reaction she often got from passersby whenever they went live. “Can we all just take a breath?”

“I could watch you take a breath all week,” Bertram said, shamelessly, his exaggerated frown at Yuri turning into a warm, smiling look as soon as he turned toward Ursula. “How about—”

“Fuck off!” Even those words failed to sting when Ursula said them. “Fucking relax!”

“Stream up in countdown from ten,” Mayumi squeaked, from her perch on one of the chairs offstage. “Ten—”

“Bertram, if you don’t sit down, I swear I’ll—”

“Sitting! Sitting!”

“—eight!”

“Pose?” Yuri flopped onto the couch between Xi and Bertram, tossing her head and crossing her legs with seductive flair. “All gods on me?”

“Five…”

“Who the fuck is on you, ah?” But Bertram formed up on her anyway, right as Ursula scurried to get into position behind him. “Timing, timing…”

“One!” Mayumi mouthed, looking too excited for words. “Nailed it!”

Music blared, filling the room with a low, lush tune. “This is _Xi’s sweet, sweet home,_ ” four well-trained voices said, in perfect unison. “Are you ready?”

> Fan C: Ah! Ah! Ah!

> Fan B Fan: HEYOOOOOOOOOOOO

> MyGodItsGodGod: I SEE U GIRL! I SEE U lol

> Fan A is dying: [heart]

> Fan A is dying: [heart]

> Fan A is dying: [heart]

> MrJiong: ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?

> MrJiong: it’s just gonna be sweet…?

> Fan C: moron, the spice is onscreen!! What do youngsters learn these days ah!!!

Because the unanimous desire was for a strictly casual event, there wasn’t much in the way of dancing. Still, singing in unison, moving together, forming a look and sound to captivate the eye, this sort of thing was old hat to Xi and his fellow former karaoke fanatics. Even in today’s world of career-class audio and super-serious former company trainees, it was possible to make a good impression when you knew your limits and ruthlessly played up your good points, and they all did.

Bertram pulled out his candy-smooth voice; Ursula rapped like a demon possessed. Yuri led them all to the beat, harmonizing effortlessly with Xi on the high notes. Xi’s voice was starting to be just a little hoarse by the third song, but somehow his exhaustion had faded; he smiled at everyone, saving his most wicked expressions for the cameras.

In the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but mock himself. _Aren’t you being a little too careful, Good God? You’re not even half a star anymore; it won’t matter if people cook up a scandal by pairing you up._ But it was nearly habit by now, especially while singing on stream, singing the way that had been his first real taste of the overwhelming press of public attention.

He’d never thought he’d make it big; there hadn’t been a hope of his moms celebrating it if he took a step further into what they called the toxic circus. At the time, he’d wavered between sulking and rebelling in the little, mostly nondestructive ways available to him, and feeling a strange, sick sense of relief. He didn’t know what he would have done, or how much more pressure he’d have felt to, to compete, to rank up, to get _noticed_ , if he hadn’t been so clear on the fact that his mothers were worried for him, but accepting.

If he’d made it…

But he hadn’t. And because he hadn’t, he could sing like this, on a whim. He could sing himself hoarse and not give a shit; he could dance without a care in the world for whether it looked strictly sexy or not. His size was just his size, not some extra roadblock to surpass or overcome.

“Bun break!!” That was Mayumi again, and Xi couldn’t help but frown for a second, looking at her and her suddenly quite large-looking knot of uni friends. “They’re all super safe, Xi, no one’s touched them, I promise!”

“I spent four fucking days on that shit,” Xi said, striding down off the stage. “Anyone who touches one out of order is 100% fucking dead.”

> Fan C: Aiya, the killer’s back…

> MrJiong: [drools]

> MrJiong: kill me any day for a bite of that…

“Event rules, Ah-Jiong-nim,” Xi said, his tone merry as he bent down to open up the first covered tray, his eyes cold. “You can’t hunger like that without being very, very specific. Mayu, give him one strike; he should know damn well what kind of appreciation is allowed in here by now.”

> **mod_mayuuu has struck down MrJiong with fire! One mark of fire is disfiguring MrJiong’s heart tree!**

> MrJiong: 囧 囧 囧 囧

> MrJiong: *zips mouth*

> GodGod: sorry, sorry, we were too excited and forgot to remind earlier on…

> dayleets: i-is this the GodGod I know? *sweats*

> Fan A, died: the real face of our GodGod is always benevolent. Evil GodGod only exists when the face cannot be seen.

> MrJiong: Ah, ah, I’ve learnt new things again ah

“Raffle time!!” Mayumi was always the most excited about this part, even though as a mod, she was completely excluded from winning. “First to go out, as always! The cinnamon bun two-pack, five up, five up…”

A flood of frantic ‘/rolls’ filled the chat. Curses followed the jubilation of the winners; the two other mods, mod_z and mod_urakilla, were soon very busy fielding complaints and getting down the details of the winners. Xi smiled gratefully at mod_z—a surly, grumpy guy that could be counted on to spring into action at in-person events—and couldn’t help but be extremely glad that he was a big enough streamer that some of these little troubling details could be handled by other people.

“…for buy-in set two,” Mayumi said, displaying the six-pack combo package with the flair and energy similar to someone talking up their firstborn child, “ _strictly_ for locals only, local meaning within reefer delivery areas 14 and 15. Bidding starts at…”

> Fan A, dying again: WTAF2!! Jiong-hyung-nim! Can you not!! Buy! Everything!!!

> MrJiong: haha

> [Fan C is narrowing their eyes at MrJiong]

> [dayleets is narrowing their eyes at MrJiong]

> [Fan B Fan is narrowing their eyes at MrJiong]

> MrJiong: *sweats*

> MrJiong: would it help if I said I’m not just buying for myself?

> The-Real-Fan-B: unforgivable!!!

“…ah, haha, it seems,” and Mayumi’s cheer was becoming somewhat strained, “the third buy-in set has also gone to Jiong-hyung…”

“Wow,” Xi said, “that’s just incredible!”

[swair]: this TRASH FXXING F*%K!

[swair]: my… my buns!!!!

[XiErXi]: chill, swearie, I set yours aside a while ago

[swair]: but cr$p-jiong’s f*ckin monopolizing the extras! QAQ

And indeed he was. He abstained from bidding for combo sets four through six, then smoothly—the chat would say cruelly—snatched up sets seven and eight, and bid set nine sky high.

> rage-of-bun-angels: how many motherfucking buns will you and your fucking group eat???

> rage-of-bun-angels: are you even local, huh? You fuckin trash bun sniper

> Xi-er-is-good: now now, rage-chan, let’s not be too hasty. He’s been verified as local, the mods have checked it all out [smile]

> rage-of-bun-angels: who the fuck spends 3k crystal just like that huh?? why bid it up that high???

> MrJiong’s-buns: wanna sell me set 9, rage-nim?

> rage-of-bun-angels: go die!!!

Mayumi, her semi-professional smile having long since gone stiff, allowed Ursula to coax her into giving over the main mike for now. As soon as the exchange happened, Mayumi was by Xi’s side in a flash, all but vibrating with the need to speak.

[swair]: 3!! MFING!! K!!! QAQ

[XiErXi]: sshh, calm down, I’ll float you some of it ok?

[swair]: he’s only doing this f*xing bulls%$t cos I said you were my cousin!!

[swair]: he’s bein all, ‘gotta support family’ but it’s SOOOOO obvious he’s just

[swair]: buying it so he can f%#kin eat in front of me

Meanwhile, in a separate, private chat:

[mayuuu]: can’t we just ban him?????

[mayuuu]: i mean it’s just claire blowing up this time, but if that was a real sub?

[mayuuu]: how would they feel?

[XiErXi]: okay, I got you, I’ll handle it

Xi did not handle it by delivering a ban, something Mayumi likely wouldn’t have pushed for if the wronged party had not been Claire. He didn’t even try to handle it by soothing people in chat, since Ursula’s soft-voiced jokes, general sunniness and smooth switch back to solely raffles were calming things down quite nicely already.

No, what this required was the direct approach. Xi retreated another step from Ursula and the buns, then turned so that his expression would be out of view of the main camera. Only then did he send MrJiong a private chat request.

[MrJiong]: !!

[MrJiong]: God Xi? For real??!

[XiErXi]: haha, no need to stand on ceremony

[XiErXi]: besides, if it’s talking about gods, you’re more of one than me, right? Dom-V-nim?

[MrJiong]: [blushes] ah… that…

 _What ‘ah’? What ‘that’?_ Xi thought, his smile gaining a cold edge. _That I’m gonna have to send a single thing to this fucking guy…_

[MrJiong]: you guessed well, God Xi. Sorry if the buying was a bit excessive [blushes]

[MrJiong]: it’s just… um, swearmouse gets a lot from you?? And everyone’s always jealous?

[MrJiong]: you could say it’s like, for team unity?? I’m the captain this year, and I’m new, so I worry a lot…

[XiErXi]: oh, the captain?

Xi, still smiling, forcibly connected two certain private chatrooms together.

[XiErXi]: you couldn’t ONCE mention he’s your fucking captain??? @swair @mayuuu

[mayuuu]: ???

[mayuuu]: WHAT?

[swair]: …QAQ

[swair]: he is, but… since he’s new…

[XiErXi]: just what have you been doing?? this isn’t something you should be crying about!

[XiErXi]: captains have fucking team structure powers in FOV right?? you should be documenting!

[XiErXi]: building up your fcking stats + appearances!! How long will you endure before this fucking trash kicks you out cos you wont fuck him

[XiErXi]: gonna ban

[swair]: noo!! no dont!

[mayuuu]: WHY THE F NOT

[mayuuu]: why didn’t you tell _me_??? this trash is

[swair]: he’s not horny for ME ok!! he’s horny for YOU!!!!!

[mayuuu]: ehh? me?? but he’s never even seen me??

[swair]: i don’t meen _you_ , mayu!!!!!!!!!

[swair]: what f*cking way would i endure his likeing u!!

[mayuuu]: ……

[mayuuu]: so… does that mean it’s Xi…????

Xi felt a headache coming on.

[MrJiong]: um…

[MrJiong]: God Xi?

[MrJiong]: you’re just standing there on stream, so…

[MrJiong]: are you ok?

[XiErXi]: ah, sorry, sorry

[XiErXi]: for the time being, can you pull back a bit?

[XiErXi]: not that I don’t appreciate the support, haha

[XiErXi]: but I’ve got some longtime locals who might put a hit out if they can’t grab some bao like usual [sweats]

 _Casual, casual,_ Xi told himself, bitterly. _Gotta be fucking casual today, right?_

[MrJiong]: God’s word is my command!!! [bows]

[XiErXi]: hahahaha ok

With his face still out of view of the main camera, Xi took a moment to close his eyes and praise the heavens that the supposedly enamoured Jiong-hyung wasn’t (yet) in the mood to be demanding. Moving briskly, he walked back onto the stage with a swagger, sending his private chat with Claire and Mayu a quick [solved] emoticon.

> Fan A is alive!: omg!!!

> Fan A is alive!: song choice song choice song choice???

> MrJiong: *melts into anticipatory puddle, for music only. pure sweet music*

> B-is-B: that’s right mah lovelies! Muah muah muah, bun break done~

And for a short, sweet time, everything, all of Xi’s worries were lost to the music. This time, without ever quite planning to, they slowly spread out to occupy the front half of the karaoke stage, shunning the couch, shunning all but song and movement.

> Xmyheart: aiyaaaaa this takes me back

> Xmyheart: omg XiGod still so jjang3, YuriGod jjang !

> MrJiong: all jjang~ all jjang~

> MyGodGodisGod: XBYU FOREVER [heart] [heart] [heart]

> mod_mayuuu: *sobs* the glory, in flesh, it’s hard to take

> Fan A: guys!!! request??

> Fan C: request +1

> MrJiong: request +2!!

> dayleets: request +100!!

> Xmyheart: request +900000

> mod_z: pay for it. [extends hand]

> **mod_urakilla has activated a Sacred Pool! Fill the pool to make a request of the Forest God!!**

Xi saw the notifications flash by as he twisted and wound and blended behind the backs of his friends. As the pool filled in what felt like record time—but was probably slow for a _real_ k-streamer—they couldn’t help but exchange conspiratory glances.

> **The Sacred Pool has been filled! Petitioner MrJiong poured their heart and soul into the pool to make this request:** vote up a song you guys~

Xi could nearly not keep from rolling his eyes. The chat went wild, and the song Xi and the others had all been half expecting to be forced to sing rocketed to the top of the list.

“I’m worried, ah,” Xi said, smirking at the camera. “This kind of song… is it okay for an all-ages stream?”

> [Fan B Fan demands that you obey the sacred request!]

> [mod_z demands that you obey the sacred request!]

> [mod_mayuuu demands that you obey the sacred request!]

> [Fan C demands that you obey the sacred request!]

> [MyGodGodisGod demands that you obey the sacred request!]

> …

On and on and on, the emotes filled the chat.

> …

> [MrJiong demands that you obey the sacred request!]

Probably, such a line was there too. Xi didn’t see one—there were just far too many emotes for that—but he couldn’t help but resent it a little, the fact that he had to obey anything Mr. I’m-a-new-captain-haha had ordered.

Consequently, when the song finally began, he was not in the mood to play nice.

[g.o.d.]: X TID!!!

[g.o.d.]: fuck!

‘TID’ being their code for ‘tone it down’, in a group where none of them had been used to doing anything but the precise opposite, Xi took a breath before the bridge and reeled it in. By then, though, the damage had been done, and Bertram was raring to go, and Yuri was following him, and even Ursula was putting way too much into this segment, so Xi couldn’t do anything but match their pace.

> MyGodGodStillGod: destruction…

> MyGodGodStillGod: the face of my god ah…

> MrJiong: s-should i be crying??

> [dayleets is crying ugly tears]

> [mod_urakilla is emotional]

> Xmyheart: [kowtows]

> Xmyheart: [kowtows]

> Fan B Fan: fuck, B, don’t strain your voice… ok, ok, just do what you like…

The song ended in silence, and then a sudden surge of screams. Mayumi’s friends had multiplied again; worse, the cursed karaoke joint had somehow plugged into the stream and mirrored it all over this floor. For a few, crazily familiar moments, Xi could barely hear himself or anyone else. All he could do was smile and eye his friends and coordinate the final bow.

> Xi-er-is-Good: that’s pretty much it for tonight, guys

> Xmyheart: ah, no, please~~~~

> **Xmyheart is petitioning for a Sacred Pool to be activated!**

> Xi-er-is-Good: sorry [smile]

> **Xmyheart’s petition has been denied!**

> Xi-er-is-Good: bun festival now, first come first served, sub priority obviously [waves]

The chat overflowed once more with rolls and curses and cries for the Forest’s favour. Luckily, the recent surge of viewers had not all had time to settle in and subscribe on a whim and thereby cause chaos and sow bitter envy in the hearts of his loyal fans; by the time the last pineapple bun two-pack was being auctioned off, the hungry new fans were only just figuring out that they could be won more easily with a sub.

> newXi: any more buns? Any more batches?

> MrJiong: look well, my child, this is the heartlessness of our Xi-er! No! There are no more batches left!!

> swearmouse: who the f is your Xi-er…

> Fan C still crying: hey now, Jiong-nim is a subscriber too

> A Fan A: *nods* he has received Xi-er’s teachings well! He has a claim on our Xi-er these days too!

> swearmouse: …

> swearmouse: just because he fxxing bought

> [swearmouse has shaken their sleeves and left the chat]

> MrJiong: 囧 囧

> A Fan A: don’t take it to heart ah, mouse easily gets jealous

> dayleets: yeah, buying’s no sin

> mod_z: +1, song pool fill was jjang

> mod_mayuuu: …and that’s almost a wrap, guys, say your final greetings!

Meanwhile, in that forcibly expanded private chatroom:

[swair]: i hate him QAQ

[swair]: typical rich f***

[XiErXi]: *pats*

[XiErXi]: you know you’re my favourite not-cousin right?

[mayuuu]: yeah, and look, you know how it is, everyone in the channel forgets this kind of shit all the time

[mayuuu]: In a week no one will even remember that jiong-sh$t existed ok?

* * *

* * *

  1. **pineapple bun:** _bo loh bao (菠蘿包)_ are a kind of sweet bun with a crackly, crumbly, delicious topping, predominantly popular in Hong Kong. Despite the name, it does not traditionally contain pineapple; the name refers to the look of the characteristic topping, which looks like the texture of a pineapple. Pics can be found [here](https://thewoksoflife.com/pineapple-buns/) if you want to torture yourself.  
**char siu bao (叉燒包):** a Cantonese bun filled with saucy, tender barbecue pork. Can be steamed or, as they are in this chapter, [baked](https://www.chinasichuanfood.com/char-siu-bao-baked-buns-recipe/).↩

  2. **WTAF:** internet abbreviation of ‘what the actual fuck’, included because I want to be absolutely sure you understand how mad Fan A is.↩

  3. **jjang (짱):** Korean slang, means amazing, awesome/excellent.↩





	3. Death to jiong-sh$t!?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Jiong displays a heaven-defying ability to ingratiate himself with former enemies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, 1 USD ~= 100 crystal.

Surprisingly, though the foul-mouthed prediction Mayumi made in attempt to comfort Claire was not meant to be, two weeks after the so-called ‘Big Bun Bash’, swearmouse and the newly renamed CptJiong seemed to have come to some sort of armed standoff.

Swearmouse didn’t swear much at all while she and Jiong were both in the chat; instead, she communicated by way of complex emotes and one- or two-syllable replies that made her sound like an overdramatic high society madam two times her actual age. Jiong continued his little quirk of doubling whatever words or phrases he said in chat, but was noticeably quieter whenever swearmouse was online too.

When asked what had happened to bring about the standoff, Claire didn’t have much to say.

[swair]: we both agreed we got off on the wrong foot a bit

[swair]: still a rich f*** but

[swair]: idk i can work with him i guess

[XiErXi]: oh yeah? That’s good…

Suspicious, Xi naturally went to his other, super-reliable swearmouse-related news source:

[XiErXi]: so in the end wtf happened with Swearie and the captain? @mayuuu

[mayuuu]: actually… met the jiong the other day.

[XiErXi]: O_O

[XiErXi]: really???

[mayuuu]: yeah, they had a family team visit day or whatever

[mayuuu]: and, and jiong was kinda, idk, nice???

[XiErXi]: O_O!

[mayuuu]: I had this image of him as like, y’know

[mayuuu]: that kind of gamer, y’know?

[mayuuu]: but like, he’s, in person he seems way more reliable? It’s obvious he’s been around the block as a pro

[mayuuu]: did you know he used to play Hallows?

Xi couldn’t help but roll his eyes, hearing that. How the fuck would he know what dear, reliable Captain Jiong used to play back in the day? He didn’t even know the guy’s real screenname!

[mayuuu]: anyway i’m pretty sure he’s kind of trying to get Dom-V a championship this year or next

[mayuuu]: before he retires to coaching or whatev

[XiErXi]: wait, wait, retire?? Isn’t he their new captain?

[mayuuu]: he was the vice captain before

[XiErXi]: …ah, i see

Xi, momentarily confused, actually went to the trouble of looking up his chatlog with Jiong, just to confirm that he wasn’t hallucinating having been told about poor sweet Captain Jiong being ruinously new to his new post of responsibility. Sure enough:

_[MrJiong]: you could say it’s like, for team unity?? I’m the captain this year, and I’m new, so I worry a lot…_

[XiErXi]: so he’s not really new to the responsibility huh

[mayuuu]: no, well, it’s still different, isn’t it?

[mayuuu]: that feeling of the buck stopping with just you??

[XiErXi]: …right, hahaha

Right, your mother!! How the fuck were those two positions not similar? Just how were they different exactly, especially for a pro player that had been switching teams and games all the way back since Hallows was really big? That was almost ten years ago!

[XiErXi]: how did the rest of the team visit go, apart from meeting him?

[mayuuu]: omg the facilities were rly nice!

[mayuuu]: sweardad was like, turning his nose up and stuff but you could see he was happy

[XiErXi]: did Janey go? I know she just got off tour

[mayuuu]: yeah! Came by at the last minute

[mayuuu]: far as I could tell, she really liked it too [smile]

[XiErXi]: huh. Well that’s all really good to hear [smile]

 _Fuck,_ Xi thought, _in the end, how many fucking people do I need to talk to to get the real story on that guy?_ Still, he steeled himself and opened up his decades-old chatroom with Janey. As his best friend, and Claire’s eternal scourge of an older sister, Janey was the least likely to mince words about whatever had happened. With her, Xi could dispense with all formalities and just ask what he wanted to know:

[XiErXi]: the fuck kind of drugs is that captain jiong selling? @jjcool

[XiErXi]: how the fuck did he swindle all y’all into likin him huh??

It took Janey something like half an hour to respond, by which time Xi was winding down from his last read through his work messages, and starting to think about setup for tonight’s stream. Naturally, when she did respond, it explained everything:

[jjcool]: shared out extra buns

[XiErXi]: …

[XiErXi]: …

[XiErXi]: …

[XiErXi]: FUCK!

[jjcool]: u wanted to know [wink]

[XiErXi]: hahahahah fuck.

[XiErXi]: see if i send those two fucking girls anything this month. Just see

[XiErXi]: would they bow down for jack the goddamn ripper if he offered them baked goods?? Just, what???

The worst thing about this power move of Captain Share-and-share-alike Jiong was that, despite having learned the real way he’d won over Claire, and therefore also Mayumi, Xi couldn’t say anything against him. It’d just look like he was being unnecessarily suspicious. Close-hearted, petty, and mean.

With anyone else, anyone less connected to those he cared about, Xi wouldn’t have minded dirtying his saintly image just a bit; what was the point of being an independent adult if you couldn’t cruelly and unilaterally decide who to cut out of your circle for arbitrary crimes? Or if not cut out, then, then pointedly and passively exclude… shit.

 _Shit._ Even when Xi thought about it from the angle of, well what if Captain wasn’t the fucking Captain, he couldn’t see any way that he could justify giving the guy the cold shoulder. When even swearmouse was willing to (however reluctantly) live and let live, what basis did Xi have for being cold to the guy? None! That’s right, none!

And the worst thing was, no matter how long Xi’s petty dislike of the whitewashed CptJiong endured, he couldn’t seem to find anything to support it.

CptJiong’s behaviour while Xi was streaming? Mildly embarrassing, sure, what healthy 25- or 26-year-old pro-gamer was so persistently cutesy in someone else’s chat, but… it wasn’t excessive.

CptJiong’s propensity for tossing money around like it was going out of style? Certainly it caused one or two of Xi’s more senior fans some bitterness and/or heartache, but let’s be real, that sort of covert competition was good for his wallet in the end, right? So that was out too, as a cast-iron reason for Xi to be annoyed.

For fuck’s sake, even though the guy now knew Xi’s global chat screenname, and had the excuse that well, they’d spoken before a bit, even if it was mostly Xi warning him to chill out during an event, well… was this really the behaviour of a guy that was supposedly head over heels hot for Xi? Since the day of the event, that Jiong fucker hadn’t messaged him in private at all! Not even once!

> Xi-er-is-Xi-er: hey guys!

> Fan ZZ: omo1, early GET!

> Xmyheart: wow! an early Xi-er!!

> Xi-er-is-Xi-er: song requests~? song requests~?

> Fan B: !!

> Fan B: did I see wrong? OwO

> Fan C: my god, the jiong~ jiong~ is spreading!!! No!!

> jjcool: what’s jiong jiong?

> CptJiong: *appears in a flash*

> CptJiong: you called~? you called~?

> swearmouse: …seriously?

> [swearmouse is greatly disturbed]

> Xi-er-is-Xi-er: I’m repenting now, haha.

> Xi-er-is-Xi-er: song requests?

As the votes poured in, Xi poked through his fridge, half his attention on its contents, and the other half on the chat. He didn’t like the increasing sense of irritation he felt at the fact that his parodying Jiong’s quirk didn’t really net much in the way of replies from the actual guy, or, for that matter, from anyone other than Claire.

[swair]: why the ever loving f*** are you encouraging him!!

[swair]: you don’t know how he’s f**king smiling rn!!! [barf] [ill] [gross.jpg]

[XiErXi]: …you’re sitting next to him?

[swair]: …no!!

[swair]: but team r all watching the stream at dinner now QAQ

[swair]: he smiles when cam goes back to u!! ARGH

[swair]: so f***ing embarrassing i could die

[XiErXi]: haha, I’ll be careful then~

Closing the chat, Xi tried and failed to keep back a smile. It wasn’t until he was halfway through applying a simple marinade to the meat he was planning to grill that he realized the true, somewhat mortifying reason he was smiling so much right now, but even that didn’t manage to kill his mood.

 _Fuck, so I’m still this fucking fickle?_ he thought. _Xi-er, you narcissistic trash, what’s so good about being liked by some guy you don’t even fucking know or trust…_ “Hm, hm, you guys’ suggestions aren’t half bad.”

> Fan C: …but? I hear a but??

> jjcool: ahaha 500 crystal says i guess the song he does

> CptJiong: hmmm~ hmmm~

> CptJiong: let’s bet~ let’s bet~

> jjcool: [JJ’s evil laughter.wav]

> jjcool: let me tell you, that’s the sound of this shijie2 counting your money in advance~

> CptJiong: no~ no~

> CptJiong: actually~ that’s the sound of your crystal coming to me~

> Fan ZZ: jiong-hyung-ah, no!! That’s a deep fuckin well!

> Xmyheart: omg, right? jjcool’s knowledge of our Xi-er is too frightening!

> Fan ZZ: Your crystal ah, you’ll donate it ah

> CptJiong: eh, but…

> swearmouse: captain, have some pride!! my god!

Grinning now, Xi moved over to the sink to clean his hands. “I’d suggest _never_ taking bets from old JJ in this channel,” he murmured. “But hey, it’s your money. Do what you want.”

> **CptJiong has crossed gazes with jjcool! A wager is afoot!**

> Fan ZZ: wtf

> Fan A: jiong-hyung, jiong-hyung, if you want to spend that badly you can just give it all to laozi3

> **jjcool gives vent to a spirited laugh! Their wager is:** <hidden until mod approves reveal>

> **CptJiong gives vent to a mocking laugh! Their wager is:** <hidden until mod approves reveal>

> swearmouse: this… this guy… [pained sigh]

> Xi-er-is-smiling: you see their bets, urakilla?

> mod_urakilla: yup~ yup~

> mod_urakilla: seen~ seen~

> Fan C: jiong~ jiong~ spreading QAQ

> **Fan B beseeches the heavens on behalf of this channel! Their message:** let’s all say NO!! to 囧囧 disease

> CptJiong: but, didn’t you just spend to say that?

> CptJiong: ahaha, it’s catching on~ catching~

More people chimed in, but Xi ignored them in favour of setting up his grill on the cramped patio of his flat. By now, the meat was safely marinading in the fridge; he had time in spades to sing while doing the rest of the easy, attention-light prep. “Are you guys done fighting? Can I sing yet?”

> Fan ZZ: Sing~! Sing~!

> swearmouse: ZZ, why…

> [Fan B is begging Xi-er-is-smiling to wash away the filth from this channel!]

> CptJiong: wash us~ wash us~

Singing like this, to this handful of quarrelling people, all while prepping vegetables to grill and shuttling back and forth between the kitchen and the patio… it was exactly the sort of thing Xi had kept his stream up for. Annoying as it was to keep track of his streaming hours, or soothe ruffled feathers, or do the thousand little tasks he couldn’t leave to the mods or to anyone else, it was all worth it for moments like this.

It didn’t hurt that, just like usual, Janey had picked out almost exactly the song that was on his mind. She got the artist wrong—it was a cover of a cover of a cover—but she’d had only one pick in comparison to CptJiong’s wildly disparate three, all of which were in Xi’s favourite genre (smart) but were clearly still wild guesses (not smart).

> Jiong-is-囧囧: how does one find the heart to go on?

> Jiong-is-囧囧: my crystal~ oh crystal~

> swearmouse: you!!!!!

> swearmouse: how the f*#k are you even sad?! It’s 500 what’s 500 even to you, isn’t that just the spare change in your motherf***ing wallet?

Claire’s rage continued in private:

[swair]: don’t be f**king fooled! This guy still fx$kin smilin like a f*** here!!

[swair]: probably wipes ass with 500 crystal on the reg, what sad, what a f*%*

Xi had been very careful not to play too much to the camera tonight, but Claire’s helpless fury kept giving him wicked ideas. It would be so easy, and so in character for him, to turn to eye the camera and shake his head in either mock sadness or disapproval, and say something like “you see now, honey? _That’s_ why you don’t bet with JJ in here.”

But Xi hadn’t kept his modest count of almost a hundred core monthly subscribers going over the last four years by failing to consider his audience, and, if Claire wasn’t exaggerating, if she wasn’t bullshitting him, his audience tonight wasn’t just the usual crowd. It was her team, possibly her team’s support staff, all or most of them the sort of hardcore gaming nerds that weren’t used to obvious flirtatiousness on stream. Or, at least, not used to watching that sort of thing in public, with your fellow fucking co-workers _right there_ to see how jazzed you were getting from watching some random fat guy bat his eyelashes in your direction.

> Xi-er: ah, what a shame [tear]

> Xi-er: one more song before grill-off, okay? Vote up!

> **Xi-er has called for a vote! <Voting once is free to all, and costs 10 crystal per extra vote (5 crystal per extra vote for subscribers)>**

> CptJiongRestored: ah~ ah~ so merciful ah~

> [CptJiongRestored has cast a vote for <Yeah He Knows (But He Won’t Tell)> by <Queen of the Knight>!]

> [Fan B has cast a vote for <Stupid You> by <any artist>!]

> Fan B: an encore!! An encore from our Xi-er!!

> CptJiongRestored: ah?? why not something new??

> [jjcool supports Fan B’s vote with a vote of their own!]

> swearmouse: haha. [cold smile]

> [swearmouse supports Fan B’s vote with a vote of their own!]

> Jiong-囧囧-again: this… [sweats]

> Jiong-囧囧-again: why bully only me QAQ

So poor Jiong’s fate was settled just like that. No one spared him; even the silent majority flooded in to upvote the encore, some just leaving behind a vague ‘haha’, others taking the initiative to point and laugh via expressions. But of course, the most deliberate offender was Janey, who ruthlessly spent every crystal she had just won off Jiong’s back:

> [jjcool supports Fan B’s vote with an extra vote of their own! (10 crystal spent!)]

> [jjcool supports Fan B’s vote with an extra vote of their own! (10 crystal spent!)]

> [jjcool supports Fan B’s vote with an extra vote of their own! (10 crystal spent!)]

> …

> [jjcool supports Fan B’s vote with an extra vote of their own! (10 crystal spent!)]

> Jiong-囧囧-again: QAQ

> Xi-er: *pats Jiong* don’t be too sad ok?

> Xi-er: think of it like you bought a personal song, maybe?

> Fan ZZ: hahahahah that’s our Xi-er~ cruel to be kind ah~

> Jiong-囧囧-again: OwO personal songs??? Can I buy??

> swearmouse: not for sale, sorry [smile]

> Jiong-囧囧-again: 囧囧

Thankfully no one seemed to think much of Xi’s ham-handed attempt at offering comfort, at least not the way _he_ personally thought of it, not two seconds after sending those two messages. _Fuck,_ he thought, even as he started to sing, _I’m actually… how the fuck am I feeling sorry for him??_

Still, no matter how much he mocked himself, and no matter how tasty his grilled beef and vegetable wraps were (extremely tasty), Xi couldn’t quite shake the feeling of having—slightly, just very, very slightly—wronged the captain. It wasn’t the amount that mattered; it was the way it had been taken. The way that Xi had admittedly helped along, just a bit, because there was no better goad to a streaming whale than to gently warn them off of spending too much.

“It’s for Claire’s sake,” Xi told himself, something like an hour and a half after he’d shut down and cleaned up everything and noodled around while feeling a mix of guilt and annoyance. “I’ll just clear the air, that’s it.”

And then, before he could think twice of his resolve:

[XiErXi]: @MrJiong here’s the crystal you lost tonight

[XiErXi has gifted MrJiong 500 crystal coins!]

[MrJiong]: ehhhhhhh?? God is still up? OwO

[XiErXi]: …haha, yup

As expected… this cutesy fucking Jiong captain fuck wasn’t easy to communicate with.

[MrJiong]: QAQ god Xi-er’s mercy!!!

[MrJiong]: is it really okay to receive this??

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong already got a personal song too…

Xi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He could easily imagine how Claire would blow up on seeing such drivel, jiongjiong, who the actual fuck was that? Just who was it that gave this trash permission to sell this disgusting half-baked meng4?

[XiErXi]: haha… it’s really okay

It wasn’t, but Xi could hardly take back the fucking crystal now, could he? That would just be slapping his own face5, and in front of this guy, too…

[XiErXi]: it’s standard policy tbh. JJ’s a good friend, she’s just kind of mean

[XiErXi]: been a long time since I had a big shot who hadn’t already lurked long enough to know to ignore her lol

[MrJiong]: ohh ohhh ohhhh ok, makes sense

[XiErXi]: yeah, I’m really sorry [bows]

[MrJiong]: ah no ah, how can I let god Xi-er apologize!! I should have been more sensible!

Okay, at least he’d dropped the bullshit third person. Time to wrap this up.

[XiErXi]: it’s fine ah, you’re still my customer, you know? Naturally I should apologize, make amends etc

[MrJiong]: still…

[XiErXi]: [shakes head resolutely]

[XiErXi]: anyway I just wanted to make sure that you know you’re still welcome in the room, everyone teases a lot but it’s all in fun

[XiErXi]: just ignore JJ’s poison bets lol, girl really knows me way too well

[MrJiong]: ah, ah, will ignore ah, but

[MrJiong]: um… how to ask…

Uh-oh.

[XiErXi]: ask what?

[MrJiong]: is it like that? Like…?

[XiErXi]: …like what?

[MrJiong]: dating, maybe? You and her?

Uhh…

[XiErXi]: no

The question, though familiar, was so very fucking old and, and ridiculous, that Xi found himself doing the absolute opposite of what he’d learned to do to keep pushy fans at bay, and answering bluntly.

[XiErXi]: JJ and I aren’t like that. Just good friends, that’s all

[MrJiong]: oh! Um…

[XiErXi]: look, this is getting a bit

[MrJiong]: 囧囧囧

“Come the fuck on, really? _Really_?” Xi couldn’t help but struggle to sit up, unable to believe—okay, able to believe, stupidly, regrettably able to believe that at a time like this, with the awkwardness level of their once somewhat sensible private chat reaching over a thousand, this guy! This guy made a fucking jiongjiong pun!!!

[XiErXi]: @jjcool just how the fuck is this captain reliable???

[jjcool]: ?

[XiErXi]: apologizing for you! Fucker says ah, but jiongjiong got a personal song~

[XiErXi]: trying to sign off in good faith! Fucker says ah, is JJ your girlfriend ah~

[jjcool]: …serious?

[XiErXi]: having just lost my mind and said no, she’s not! Trying to sever!! Fucker says fucking 囧囧囧!!!!

[jjcool]: transcript?

[jjcool]: [salivates]

[XiErXi]: fuck your transcript ah!! Does this guy look like some fxxing idol, how does he deceive people to make them call him reliable!! Does anyone actually read his fucking words!!!!!!

At the same time, the window of that deceiver was spitting up a sad stream of notifications.

[MrJiong]: god Xi? God Xi-er?

[MrJiong]: sorry…

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong did wrong QAQ

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong won’t ask anymore ah

[MrJiong]: [kowtows]

[MrJiong]: god Xi-er’s private business is just that! jiongjiong will reflect!!

[MrJiong]: god Xi-er’s good friend’s private business is also just that! jiongjiong reflecting seriously ah ah!!

That last line was particularly infuriating, not because of the horrible cutesiness, or because it had needed to be said at all. It infuriated Xi to read that line because… well, the following line was:

[MrJiong has logged off]

[XiErXi]: come the fuck on, really?

[XiErXi]: reflecting, promising to bullshit reflect and then sign off just like that??

[jjcool]: ah??

[XiErXi]: fuck!!!!

[jjcool]: hey……. I don’t understand

[jjcool]: was he horning on me, or on you??

Realistically, despite Claire’s staunch insistence that the evil Captain Jiong was lusting after Xi’s ass, considering the kind of guy he was…

[XiErXi]: why do you even fuciing ask!!! It’s you you you you you you!!!!!!

[XiErXi]: horny gamer F*CK

[XiErXi]: every girl they even glance at online, any girl that fuxxing exists is their fuckin future wife

[jjcool]: hehe

[jjcool]: still wanna know what he looks like?

[XiErXi]: absolute 10000% no!!! Fuck!!!

[jjcool]: [captain jiong.jpg]

Yeah, that was Xi’s best friend alright. Jane Esposito, hardcore 100% no-holds-barred dyed-in-the-wool sadist, getting her fucking kicks whenever, wherever…

[XiErXi]: …this??

[jjcool]: you wouldn’t think it, right?

Captain Jiong was not precisely the kind of person you looked at twice. Tall, solidly built, vaguely handsome in default pale-skinned, indeterminate Asian sort of way, every feature of his screamed Safe, Reliable and Trustworthy. Fit, from the obvious, but not too obvious musculature. Pleasant, from the small, friendly smile. Compared to his fellow pro gamers, he was probably a flower of the highest order, but putting him up on your standard entertainment stream would only end in empty chatrooms and tears.

[XiErXi]: is that seriously him???

[jjcool]: huhuhuhu, still waters, right?

[jjcool]: not my cup of tea, but, considering he’s rich? Well…

[XiErXi]: you foul woman lol

Xi couldn’t believe he was looking at the actual person that had provoked Claire to vicious rages, or the same one that vomited 囧囧囧囧 all over his fucking stream. Next to Claire’s sullen, slightly hunched form, and those of the rest of what was probably the whole Dom-V roster, Captain Jiong looked like the solid dependable hyung of every anxious parent’s dreams.

[XiErXi]: do you know his main?

[jjcool]: huhuhu, who do you think I am~

[jjcool]: it’ll cost you, you know [innocent blinks]

[XiErXi]: fine, cost, fine, just fucking tell me…

* * *

* * *

  1. **Omo (오모):** Korean exclamation, means ‘oh my’. Used as an expression of excitement or surprise.↩

  2. **Shijie:** Chinese, literally “teacher older sister”, usually translated as “senior sister” or “senior martial sister”. A respectful term for an older-than-you/more-senior-than-you woman apprenticed to a martial sect, usually used in Xianxia/Wuxia/Xuanhuan settings. You can infer both how highly jjcool thinks of herself and what kind of hobbies she probably has from this.↩

  3. **Laozi:** Chinese, arrogant way of referring to oneself. Lit. ‘your father’, ‘this father’↩

  4. **selling meng:** when someone (often deliberately) acting in a cutesy way. **Meng** means ‘cute/adorable’ in Chinese.↩

  5. **slapping one’s own face:** Chinese expression for when you take action in a way that causes you to lose face, i.e. one’s social standing.↩




**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changed footnote styling so you get shunted to the actual start of the footnote, instead of the end. Also, Saturday's update here might be posted on Friday night because I'll be busy this weekend. Just a heads up ;)


	4. [Definitely-not-Xi] is browsing the profile of [Captain Jiong]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xi tries to work through his sudden, unwelcome interest in Captain Jiong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI there is a cliffhanger at the end of this. Wait till the next chapter gets posted if you want to avoid it ;D

The whole thing was such a bad fucking idea, and yet… there Xi was, on the weekend, using his valuable fucking time to peep at Captain Jiong’s poisonous stream.

Poisonous, because from the very moment Xi navigated to @starmike’s profile page (and wouldn’t you know, his actual real name was Michael Star)… it was just a feeling Xi got, looking at the tidy structure, the desperately respectful fans rejoicing over a recent exhibition match win, praising endlessly. It was bitter and sweet, the beginning of the worst kind of jealousy, the kind that could neither be helped nor soothed.

_You’re being irrational,_ Xi told himself. _It’s his job to be popular; a rock would be popular as the Dom-V captain, okay?_ But he still felt jealous, even though a quick look through the VOD list was enough to tell him that their stream genres, and thus also their audiences, were diametrically opposed.

Xi streamed pretty much whenever he felt like it, only bothering to send reminders when he was going to miss a whole week or had planned a big event; Captain Mike Star streamed at a religiously uniform 5 PM every Saturday, rain or fucking shine. Xi diced up his VODs and tagged some on a whim and let the rest of them be; Captain Mike Star’s VODs were strictly organized and tagged and labelled to within an inch of their lives.

Captain Mike Star had a full staff of paid, unyielding mods. Captain Mike Star regularly hit the front page of the gaming genre when reviewing pro games from FOV and other eSports. Captain Mike Star was usually quite serious, and smiles from him were rare, kind and impersonal.

Xi had never felt so acutely unprofessional as he did tonight, his alternate ID lost in the heaving sea of ardent Starmen and Starwomen (the captain’s cringey but official fucking fan club names). It wasn’t the kind of stream he was into, but the organization, the smooth, regimented interplay between clips and plays and the captain’s warm-voiced, earnestly serious chatter, all of those things added up in a way Xi innately understood. It wasn’t the best pro-gaming stream, but it definitely wasn’t the worst either. It was probably the kind of thing kids and teens would brandish in their parents’ faces when being mocked about how unserious or unworthy their passion was.

_Probably_ , Xi thought, enviously, _this fucking jiongjiong can retire straight to streaming, broadcasting, commentating, and get another fucking dump truck of money unloaded all over him just like that._ And, considering the carefully downplayed origins of Captain Star, and the fact that Star-nim looked strongly similar to the cherished firstborn of the Lavalle branch of the Star family of Star Global Enterprises… wasn’t this just definitely a case of the rich getting richer?

‘Illegitimate,’ was the worst thing the eSports tabloids could throw at Michael Star. Which said a lot, whether about Star-jiong-nim’s reliable and prudent nature, or his frightening ability to cover up his misdeeds, illegitimate Star or no.

The very worst thing was his voice. Warm, deep, and often just a bit hesitant, it was the kind of voice Xi could imagine himself getting helplessly hard to, and if he’d had just a little bit more self control, he wouldn’t have known. Wouldn’t have put himself in the humiliating position of thirsting for someone who was probably, no overwhelmingly likely to be straight, and also probably thirsting for his best friend.

Somehow, Janey’s blithe joke about only considering bothering with Captain Jiong due to his money just made the whole thing worse. Janey didn’t joke like that about anyone she had real interest in. Generally she just didn’t fucking mention the twisted shit she got up to with her willing slaves, because for all she liked to crack wise, she was also intensely private about that part of her life.

Competing with her over boys? That kind of thing had only happened back in the dark ages, when they were trapped with every other secondary school kid their age and bored out of their skulls and willing to try anything. After they got into karaoke, after Janey got noticed and hit it too big to be casual about anything, all that half joking, half earnest competitive sexual strife died out in a hurry.

[XiErXi]: take responsibility, ah

[jjcool]: eh? Why?? [blinking innocently]

[XiErXi]: at least tell me he can’t fxxing sing ah…

[jjcool]: ok, ok, as the cause of your suffering, I’ll be charitable

[jjcool]: I’ll let you off just this once

[XiErXi]: doesn’t that mean you just want me to suffer more ah

[XiErXi is refusing to listen!]

[jjcool]: surely you already know he’s a bit too perfect [smile]

[jjcool]: and that the results when these Serious Pro Gamer Boys get the urge to sing on stream are, how do I put it~

[XiErXi]: didn’t I tell you I don’t wanna know!!!!

[jjcool]: did I say he sang well?? All I’m saying is

[XiErXi is refusing to listen!]

[XiErXi is refusing to listen!]

[XiErXi is refusing to listen!]

…

…

[XiErXi is refusing to listen!]

[jjcool]: …ah? [forehead vein pop.jpg]

[jjcool]: spit on my charity, I spit on you~ [jiong-sings.vid]

[XiErXi]: QAQ

Somehow, he managed not to click on that particular, poisonous link immediately. Its presence haunted him just the same, the chat window notification refreshed every day without fail by an automatic [smile] emote from Janey, followed by the same damn link again.

Two weeks later—a month and a bit after the bun event—Xi finally gave in and watched the damn video.

To his relief, Captain Jiong wasn’t, ahem, precisely the best singer. He could hold a tune, just, but giving it life or meaning was another story.

However…

[XiErXi]: *bitterly* even his so-so singing is cute

[XiErXi]: fuck this fucking…

[jjcool]: [smirk] [smirk] [smirk]

* * *

Naturally, Xi recovered.

It wasn’t permanent or instant or really any sort of praiseworthy improvement, just his hard-earned years of experience in dancing on while his heart wasn’t really in it. _Two weeks,_ he told himself. _Two weeks, no, four, and you’ll feel better._

Pathetic as it felt to be making that kind of half-bargaining, half-cringing promise with himself, Xi knew himself too well to feel too bad about it. Just how many times had it been, ah, that he’d fallen a little too hard for someone’s face?

Yes, make no mistake, though MrJiong or starmike or whoever the fuck he was wasn’t all that good-looking, Xi’s uneasy, hopeful, lustful feelings towards him were based strictly on his external appearance! Two really quite bad experiences with people that initially seemed to be pleasant and easy to deal with had taught him very, very, very well that the appearance of a person could have less than nothing to do with what they were really like to you when everyone had gone home and it was just you and him left to clean up the post-party mess.

Xi had been hit once, and had stayed, shell-shocked, hanging onto the knotted mess of that relationship for almost a month. He’d been at a low point, having just graduated and officially put away all thoughts of living primarily on the money he could make from hardcore karaoke streaming, and it had taken Janey showing up from out of the blue for him to realize just how bad he felt. He’d smiled and laughed and burned brightly opposite her all night, ignoring the dark looks from Cameron, and in the end, when they were back home and screaming at each other, he’d realized that what he envied when he saw Janey wasn’t her career as a pop star, or the fact that her risky bets had paid off.

It was the fact that, tired and thin as she looked, she’d had a careless ease about her, an ease she’d nearly always had while they were growing up. They’d been best friends since they could walk because they were both so shameless; seeing her had driven home just how much Xi had shed that careless confidence, and made him understand that he could no longer endure.

Cameron had hit him again that night, but it had no longer felt like the end of the world. Xi had bit the inside of his lip, gathered up his wavering courage, and moved out that same night. _You’re gonna go out looking like **that**?_ Cam had asked, his tone mocking as ever. And instead of flinching, Xi had just smiled and left. After all, what point was there in living life if he couldn’t just shamelessly do as he pleased?

So. Xi went on streaming. He allowed himself one—alright, two peeks a day at Captain Jiong’s main account’s activities, and of course he let his filthy imagination run wild while he wanked, but that was it. He didn’t bother trying to restart their once again dormant private chat; he didn’t bother reaching out to MrJiong in any way that would be out of the ordinary for a streamer and their big-spending subscriber.

* * *

Sadly, that didn’t mean that certain pesky unrelated people wouldn’t take the initiative to stir up trouble.

[mayuuu]: um, Xi-sunbae-nim, can i ask

[XiErXi]: denied.

[mayuuu]: …I haven’t even asked!! QAQ

[XiErXi]: don’t be cute, spit it out

[mayuuu]: it’s just, have you sent anything lately? To Claire?

[XiErXi]: no?

[XiErXi]: it’s been what, two, three weeks since I sent caramels, right?

[mayuuu]: yeah, but

[XiErXi]: I’m testing recipes right now, too. She won’t die if she has to wait a couple more days, will she?

[mayuuu]: …no

[XiErXi]: is that all? I’ve got to check on my meringues

[mayuuu]: i’ll wait, check them~ check them~

[XiErXi]: don’t you fucking succumb too. Aren’t you on Swearie’s side, how can you use those fucking tildes??

[mayuuu]: …sorry T_T

These days, the tilde infestation had so thoroughly taken root in the chatroom of _Xi’s sweet, spicy home_ that even Xi himself had to use them occasionally to not be seen as churlish. Forced to use them to blend in in his own fucking base, while receiving only angry frothing from Claire and unfulfilled lust as his rewards, how could he not be angry?

Though, well, hadn’t Claire been a bit less chatty lately? Not that he _wanted_ to hear, for the fiftieth time, just how much of a deceiver and tyrant Captain Jiong was, but… oh wait, the regular season for FOV had kicked in a couple weeks ago, that was probably it. And though swearmouse had always lurked his chatroom in the evenings even while she was neck-deep in the gruelling schedule of the team’s training camp, it wasn’t completely surprising that she’d have even less time to do that now that she was on the team for real.

[XiErXi]: @swair how’s the season starting off for you guys?

[User _swair_ is currently offline]

[XiErXi]: huh?? @mayuuu, why the fuck is Swearie offline so early?

[mayuuu]: T-T

[mayuuu]: why’d you think i asked about whether you sent the goods??? Dom-V lost two out of three of their opening matches!!!!!!!

[mayuuu]: Claire played in the last one they lost!!!!!!!!!

[XiErXi]: oh, hell

[mayuuu]: so quickly f***ing send something ok!!!!!!

Luckily, Xi hadn’t planned on streaming today, so he had the leisure to mourn his slightly cracked meringues even as he scoured his fridge and pantry for ideas about what to send. Though of course that didn’t mean he couldn’t dig into things a bit with Mayumi, for whom this situation seemed to be the last straw.

[mayuuu]: she won’t even pick up my calls

[mayuuu]: she’s getting flamed so bad, i’m scared

[XiErXi]: but, but, what about the match footage? Like was she crying??

[mayuuu]: would i be this worried if she’s the type to f**kin cry!!!!

[mayuuu]: she never cries in front of me! How would she cry on

[mayuuu]: on a fucking pro match stream!!!!

[XiErXi]: ok, ok, it looks like I can stretch to a full batch of cupcakes, thank fucking god

[mayuuu]: don’t ice them

[XiErXi]: ah? Why??

[mayuuu]: team nutritionist mad at her already

[mayuuu]: since way before all this

Xi couldn’t help but pause to pinch the bridge of his nose. This was exactly why he usually went to Mayumi whenever he was worried about Claire, but hearing this unwelcome news, on top of everything else, was just…

[XiErXi]: why didn’t you tell me?

[mayuuu]: ……QAQ

[XiErXi]: should I only take over a smaller set for her? I can’t imagine how much aggro I built up by sending all those sweets

[mayuuu]: no no nono it’ll look even worse if you only send them to her

[mayuuu]: they all hide to eat it anyway, it’s just

[mayuuu]: you might not wanna deliver through the front door…? [sweats]

[XiErXi]: who the f said I’d deliver this?? Don’t you exist???

[mayuuu]: you…

[mayuuu]: why would I ask for fuckin help delivering if there wasn’t something on my end????

[mayuuu]: would I bother asking you?? Mr BIG BAD FXKIN MOOD???!

[mayuuu]: this is why i didn’t say anything from the start!!

[XiErXi]: ah…? But I’m not in a bad mood

[mayuuu]: YES !

[mayuuu]: YOU !

[mayuuu]: ARE !

[mayuuu]: got essays due tomorrow so I’m sorry, but, if it’s getting them to her tonight or tomorrow you’ll have to think of a way

[mayuuu]: I could do Saturday but that’s their next game…

[XiErXi]: fine fine i’ll fucking go

[XiErXi]: sorry, ok?

[mayuuu]: …

[mayuuu]: you better send me something too. or else.

[XiErXi]: …have I been that bad?

[mayuuu]: it doesn’t really show on stream, but… yeah

[XiErXi]: …

[XiErXi]: fuck

Annoyed at himself, at Mayumi, at Claire, at his stream, at the whole fucking world, Xi would have very much loved to be able to take it all out by pummelling the shit out of some dough. Alas that the cupcakes he was making required nothing more than a short bit of creaming and folding to get everything together; he stretched things out by doing it all manually, but it didn’t feel like enough.

[XiErXi]: I’m icing them

[mayuuu]: !!

[XiErXi]: they’re sneaking them, I’m gonna have to sneak them in, why fucking bother if they’ll just be plain

[mayuuu]: but, but, if you guys are caught

[XiErXi]: don’t we have an iron-clad way in? With that fucking jiong?

[mayuuu]: !

[XiErXi]: already pinged him, now waiting to hear back

[XiErXi]: in case he doesn’t reply, do you know anyone else over there to

[XiErXi]: nvm, he’s on, one sec

And so there was new activity in the once-barren private chatroom he shared with MrJiong, as if the month and a bit of fraught, awkward silence had never occurred.

[MrJiong]: won’t coming all the way out that early be a hassle? Doesn’t God Xi-er have work?

[XiErXi]: I work remote most of the time, it’ll be fine

[XiErXi]: just to confirm, it’s this <Wild Rose Cafe>?

[MrJiong]: that’s it~ that’s it~

This fucking guy… With just four words! A complete and utter destruction!! Every bit of the half-guilty anticipation Xi had been feeling about his being forced by circumstance to parade himself before his current, embarrassing obsession drained away.

[XiErXi]: didn’t you guys just lose a game?

[MrJiong]: cake will heal~ cake will heal~

[XiErXi]: …haha

“If he’s at all like this in person,” Xi couldn’t help but sneer, “what kind of crush won’t just disappear the moment he opens his mouth…” Already, what there was of his crush was sort of withering in the merciless light of reality.

Just what had been the point of Xi maintaining his distance? Closeness to the jiong was exactly what he needed to correct his sickness!!

[XiErXi]: team allergies I need to know about?

[MrJiong]: God Xi uses the standard flour blend, right? If so, then nope~ nope~

[XiErXi]: hahaha

That he had for even one moment cared whether or not this guy was just dying to get his heart trampled on by Janey… wasn’t it a fucking disgrace?

* * *

The next day dawned grey and dour and cloudy, i.e. the usual joyous spring ambiance of Westhope City. Xi, cursing the impulse that had led him to promise a noon sharp arrival, did his best to hurry through his morning routine so he could knock out as many account reviews as he could before he had to head out.

To his surprise and relief, Claire was online, though very obviously in just the kind of spirits that would have prompted Xi to rush to send out a care package as soon as he heard her low, somewhat hoarse voice over link. “It’s like Dad always says,” she murmured, when he very carefully asked about how things were going with the team, “life sucks sometimes, and you get over it.”

She didn’t sound over it; she sounded tired and sad and just a little fragile. But underneath it was her usual dogged refusal to quit, which was why Xi didn’t push to have her try to sneak out to meet him at the cafe along with her captain. “I’ve marked the cupcakes with extra filling,” was all he said, in the end. “You’ll know it when you see it.”

“Noughts and crosses?”

“Nope,” Xi said, delighted to hear the interest in her formerly tired tone. “Like I said, you’ll know it when you see it.” It’d probably take her all of two seconds to figure out that the cupcakes he’d marked with white hearts were the ones _without_ extra filling, but at least she’d have a little puzzle to look forward to, something light and simple and easy to solve. “When do I get to come out and see you, like, officially, huh? You asked Mayu, and she’s hardly family…”

Naturally that ended up detouring into a passionate explanation of just why Mayu was in her own separate category compared to anyone else in Claire’s life, and how deeply annoying it was that everyone assumed they were related or just really, _really_ good friends, when Mayu was love and Mayu was life. Though of course Claire would never say something so directly embarrassing.

“…mid-season break, huh? Yeah, that’ll work.” Xi paused mid-way through a review note to flip through his calendar. “Shit, I could make a whole thing of it, do a whole event. The K bars on your side of town are just in a whole other league from what we’ve got out here…”

Hours later, Xi’s idle suggestion was starting to take on a life of it’s own. He’d used to live out here, not quite Canalside, but close, and Haeguk square was a legendary spot for karaoke nerds and streamers to hang out. Every bar that let out onto that square could boast of at least one mega-famous group that had blown up there; the historic backdrop would be enough of a draw for his stream on it’s own to make it worth the trip up.

“No pre-baked prizes though,” Xi muttered, shaking one slightly cramping hand. “Just getting everything up to the bloody location would wipe me out.” The walk from the station to Wild Rose Cafe hadn’t _looked_ very long on the map, but doing that walk in the lunchtime rush while schlepping a large, heavy, double-layered cake box had very nearly sapped Xi of all his strength. “How the fuck I ever used to do this every weekend…”

“Excuse me? Uh, Mr. Xi?”

“Hmm?” Somehow, though Xi had been, if not prepared, then at least deeply aware of the effect Captain Jiong—no, Captain Mike Star might have on him when they met in person, the difference between his imagination and reality in this case was just too shocking. “Uhh…”

“It’s me, Jiong,” the tall, neatly dressed person hovering at the side of Xi’s cafe table said, his smooth voice as unruffled as if he had introduced himself by his real name. “Sorry I’m late.”

Captain Star had a nondescript hoodie and a baseball cap on, and had both hood and cap arranged so that his face was shielded from casual glances. He seemed much larger in person than he had on his calm, regimented stream VODs. As he sat down opposite Xi, the chair he was using creaked, and his pale, strong-looking hands pushed the cake box a little to one side. “Wow, is this all for us?”

“Yep,” Xi said, brightly, now even more determined to keep this meeting short and quick. Captain Star was smiling kindly at him, and he had a slight four o’clock shadow, and it was obvious even when they were both sitting down that he was taller than Xi. As he moved to sit down, he’d left just a hint of his scent in the air, something faint and fresh that Xi knew, just _knew_ would be featuring in his next wank no matter how much rotten meng was sold to his face in this ill-fated meeting. “Don’t worry about how to get the box back to me, okay? Swearie can just send it like she always does.”

“You really call her that, huh?” Captain Star was still smiling, and Xi couldn’t look away. “Hard to believe you aren’t really cousins.”

“Oh, it’s just, you know, our families were close growing up,” Xi said, though he knew he didn’t really need to explain. “We weren’t quite neighbours, but almost as good as. If I remember right, she was my… my second? Right, my second paid sub.”

“And your first?”

“Janey, her older sister. Best friends since we were in nappies, but she really didn’t stick around for long, and whenever I’d complain she’d tell me it was for the best, and that any proper streamer would want their subs to be as free as possible of even the appearance of nepotism.”

“And the real reason?”

“She chooses a one-month sub, and she never renews,” Xi said, shrugging, hating himself for basking in the slight, wry curve that Captain Star’s mouth had just taken on. It wasn’t a smile, it was better. It was almost a smirk. “You know how minimal Forest alerts are, well, she’s the type of person that only responds to the precise opposite. Needs five reminders and bold, screaming font to even remember a subscription exists.”

“Ah,” Captain Star said, nodding sagely. “Is it okay if I, um, if I take a look at…?”

“Oh, yeah, go ahead,” was Xi’s blithe, inwardly mortified answer. Hadn’t he meant to cut this fucking meeting short? Hadn’t he _seen_ the captain’s hands stroking the sides of the cake box, clearly signalling the unconscious desire to open up the opaque cover to peep at the treasures within? What if, instead of contenting himself with eyeing the cupcakes, this Captain fucking Star decided to torture Xi by actually eating one and moaning in delight…?? “Did I make too many?”

“Definitely not,” was the low, very nearly reverent answer. “This… it sort of smells like coffee…?”

“It’s a coffee and chocolate ganache topping,” Xi said, taking entirely too much pleasure in the way that made the captain’s eyebrows rise. “Which is much less complex than it sounds, but still delicious.”

“Esposito’s favourite?”

“Not her favourite, _a_ favourite. And hopefully it’s something everyone will like. Bit of a morale booster.”

“Well, it’s appreciated,” Captain Star said, as he slowly replaced the cover. “It’s really nice of you to have taken the time to bring this over, you know, rearranging your schedule…”

“Oh it’s fine,” Xi said, waving one hand, half glad and half chagrined that it was the captain who had turned the conversation towards the stage of mutual thanks leading up to polite separation. “Anything for my favourite non-cousin in her time of need.”

Smiling, the captain began to shift back and rise from his chair, so Xi, also smiling, mirrored him. They didn’t say much of a goodbye, either, exchanging brisk handshakes and murmurs of how they’d better be getting back to it, and then Xi was squeezing his way out of the increasingly crowded cafe while feeling dazzled and hungry and just a little sad.

Naturally, the moment he was back on the subway, half an hour since the fated meeting and about twenty minutes since he’d consumed the wilted sandwich he’d picked up at the cafe and then utterly forgot once he had Captain Jiong-but-really-Star in front of him, Xi took his grievances to private chat.

[XiErXi]: against the motherfxxing heavens!!!!!

[XiErXi]: what right does that jiong FUCK have to be that fuckin hot in person QAQ

[XiErXi]: how to let this cursed crush die now ah……

When Janey didn’t respond, Xi simply sighed and switched his attention to the hard-nosed negotiations he’d kicked off with one of his old hangouts on Haeguk Square for the exclusive use of one of their decent-sized private rooms. By the time there was a response, he was already down to wheedling out as many extras as possible, and so didn’t bother to check the chat until he’d squeezed off at the station near his flat.

Possibly, that was a good thing, because the moment he opened the chat, he lost a good five or ten minutes just standing stock still on the station platform, wishing from the bottom of his heart that he had seen it all wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!!!!!

[MrJiong]: O_O!

[MrJiong]: a crush…?


	5. A crush…???

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following the inadvertent revelation of a certain crush, Xi tries to do damage control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late chapter post because crappy day >.>. No cliffhanger this time, though? :D?

[MrJiong]: a crush…?

[XiErXi]: …

[XiErXi has logged off]

Ten years ago, that was probably, word for word, how things would have gone. But that was ten years ago, and no matter how flushed and mortified and _stupid_ Xi felt for not checking which chat he was venting in _before_ venting, he was now an adult that had (some) experience in handling such awkward turns.

So, instead of an immediate logoff, that wordless ellipsis was followed by:

[XiErXi]: haha whoops, wrong chat!

And _that_ was followed by Xi murmuring, as he walked in stumbling steps to the station exit: “Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t fucking ask…”

[MrJiong]: eh? but…

[MrJiong]: wasn’t it jiongjiong that you just met today?

[MrJiong]: or was there someone else you met today for the first time?

That… didn’t that make it seem like, no, make the whole drift of the conversation feel like the complaint of a jealous lover to his love? Frazzled, Xi could only stall.

[XiErXi]: it’s not that

[XiErXi]: it’s just, I was joking with a friend

[XiErXi]: I’ve caught your disease lately I guess, haha. Call all sorts of things jiong

[MrJiong]: …

[MrJiong]: it didn’t seem like a joke though?

Oh, come on! _Now_ he was serious??

[XiErXi]: what can I say, the jokes in my circle are deep like that

[MrJiong]: …

[MrJiong]: still, though…

[XiErXi]: what? Don’t tell me you actually want me to crush on you?

[XiErXi]: aren’t you straight, lol?

The cold spring wind scoured Xi from all sides as he finally emerged onto street level. He kept eyeballing those two, madly daring sentences, and picking them over for inconsistencies, for tells. Captain Jiong’s status switched between ‘typing’ and nothing over and over again.

[MrJiong]: I’m gay.

“Doesn’t mean he’s not got a boyfriend,” Xi told himself, sternly. “Or that you’re his type. Just, just play it cool, play it cool…”

[XiErXi]: oh, yeah? Wouldn’t have guessed, haha

[MrJiong]: …

“Oh my fucking god, now it’s me laughing and laughing like a fucking idiot,” Xi muttered. “Fuck.”

[XiErXi]: so I guess the question stands~ so please answer~

[XiErXi]: do you want~ my crush~

“If Claire could see this, she’d fucking kill me,” Xi couldn’t help but say, fighting back an embarrassed smile. Somehow, the thought of the kind of reply he’d most likely get back no longer worried him. He’d often dealt with his inappropriate crushes like this before, hadn’t he? Laughter and teasing always muted the sting.

[MrJiong]: ah, um~ jiongjiong has something to say~

[MrJiong]: if God Xi doesn’t like it, jiongjiong will go away~

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong is actually… it’s jiongjiong that has a crush on god Xi… [blushes]

“What…”

Really… could this guy be serious…?

[XiErXi]: are you being serious right now?

[MrJiong]: …yes [blushes]

This… how to say it… even if it was serious, even if it was technically the thing that Xi hadn’t dared to imagine would be real…

[XiErXi]: omg

[MrJiong]: ??!

[XiErXi]: how is your gap1 this big? Isn’t this a fucking canyon?

[MrJiong]: but does God Xi-er… does God Xi also…?

[XiErXi]: you can’t call your boyfriend ‘God’ anything

[XiErXi]: rule number fucking one, ok?

[MrJiong]: !!!

[MrJiong]: then… then… Xi-er~?

[XiErXi]: not that either! Xi! Just Xi!!

[MrJiong]: Xi~ Xi~

[XiErXi]: …

[XiErXi]: there’s really no helping you, is there

[MrJiong]: from a young age, jiongjiong has been a lost cause~

[MrJiong]: games and Xi~ Xi and games are all I love in this life~

[XiErXi]: didn’t you only just subscribe to my channel like two or three months ago??

[MrJiong]: even new love can be deep love~

How was it that, at this time, instead of solely cringing at the rotten meng, God Xi, no, Xi-er, no, just Xi, was feeling strangely, helplessly flattered?

[XiErXi]: I’d pay crystal to hear you say that shit with a straight face

[MrJiong]: no need~ jiongjiong will do it for free~

**MrJiong is requesting to talk to you on [link], [accept] or [deny]?**

Immediately, Xi hit accept, and just as immediately regretted it. If this was somehow meant to be one long, horrible prank, or some other form of joke, now would be the best time to spill the beans. The best time to chuckle and say how funny it was that your joking lies were so easily believed.

“Um,” Captain Star’s warm, slightly hoarse voice said, “this… uh, new love…”

Xi couldn’t help but hold his breath.

“…fuck.”

Xi, standing just outside the door to his flat, had to cover his mouth to smother an unstoppable giggle. “Well?” he said, struggling to keep his tone sharp. “I’m waiting.”

“I can’t,” was the low, helpless answer. “It’s just…”

“Whaaaat? One simple, cheesy sentence, you can type it, but you can’t say it out loud to me?”

“It’s, it’s just different.”

“ _How?_ ”

“It’s different, knowing you can hear whatever I’m saying. Usually… usually I’m just listening to you.”

Something about the quiet, almost guilty tone of the voice Xi could hear made him abruptly certain that listening wasn’t all that the captain had done, when he was watching Xi stream. He’d listened, and _looked_ , and maybe he’d even sometimes taken to doing so only in private, the way most non-porn streamers actively pretended wasn’t a thing that happened, even though there was often a portion of their regular subscribers that never, ever said anything in chat. That possibly didn’t want to give away their helpless excitement, their secret, inappropriate lusts…

“How’s this going to work when I want to see you?” Xi finally said, as his flat door began to grind its way closed behind him. He felt hot under the collar. He wanted… but surely it was stupid, worse than stupid, to suggest doing anything like he was imagining on the first fucking night that they’d got across to each other. “Your schedule, I know it’s probably kind of…”

“If it’s during the week, I’m afraid you’ll have to be the one coming up here,” the captain said. “Weekends though, Sundays particularly, that I can do, when we’re not playing an away game.”

“Ah. You know, all of a sudden, I’m really, really really glad I’m not Claire’s cousin.”

“Oh?” The smile in his tone let Xi know that he probably already understood what Xi was leading up to saying. “Really?”

“Your eSport papers’ hacks would have a field day with it,” Xi muttered. “Trading favours, secret family connections, that sort of thing.”

“For me, I’d honestly prefer it if the two of you were related,” Captain Jiong said, his tone of voice still warm, still amused. “I’d love to take advantage of something like that.”

“Really?” Xi said, though his own growing, foolish smile had faltered. “That’s a bit…”

“If we won, you’d come over to celebrate,” Captain Jiong said, his voice low and hot. “If we lost, you’d come by to comfort her, and no one would think anything of your stopping by my office for a chat.”

Xi flushed, well able to imagine the kind of thing they’d be able to get up to in that situation. “I don’t, I wouldn’t usually…”

“You wouldn’t do it after _every_ loss,” was the still low answer. “Just the worst ones. Usually, what happens is the parents or family or agents give me a call, but since you’re fairly nearby, I know you’d try to come by in person.”

Just hearing his low, persuasive voice was enough stimulus to make Xi all too able to see the scene, to imagine what exactly would happen. He’d go over, toting a hasty mix of whatever pastries were to hand, and he’d hug Claire and say something comforting, and then, on his way out, the captain would just happen to be there. Xi would be the one to ask for a moment of his time, only to fall to his knees the moment the door ground shut behind them.

They wouldn’t even speak. The topic of the team, or Claire’s place in the starting lineup, it wouldn’t even come up. All Xi would use his mouth for, for the frantic quarter hour they could justify being hidden, was to suck and lick and swallow.

“I’m never, ever going to do that,” Xi found himself saying, his tone sharper than it probably should have been. “I don’t—I’d much rather there wasn’t any, any possibility of people being able to interpret our behaviour as, as if we were trading favours.”

“Can I take that as a promise?” The captain’s tone was gentle, but something about the way he said those words made them sound unspeakably lewd. “Will you only ever comfort me for free?”

“Fuck off,” Xi muttered. “Stop teasing, you know I’m trying to be serious.”

“Sorry,” was the low answer. “I’ll stop, I’ll stop.”

Xi flushed, caught between the urge to mutter that the other man didn’t need to stop _all_ his teasing, and the equally strong urge to keep up a cool front as long as possible. He half wished they were together right now, just so he could get a better idea of what on earth Captain Jiong was really thinking, even though it would mean having to stand up to the confusion of having that face and that voice wielded against him.

“It’s not that I think that you, personally, need those lines drawn,” Xi said, though of course that wasn’t completely true. “It’s just that I don’t want it unclear where I stand on this sort of thing.”

“That’s understandable,” was the serious response, and Xi couldn’t help but shiver and feel despairing at the fact that, even when Captain Jiong wasn’t going out of his way to be seductive, that fucking voice _still_ tripped him up. “Entirely understandable.”

“Right,” Xi murmured, all while thinking _cool it, cool it, don’t give away your stupid sex-crazed brain_ , “so. Would this Sunday work?”

“For what?”

“I thought…” Xi blinked, then flushed again, caught between outrage and mortification at the way he’d almost fallen into the captain’s trap. How he could sound so perfectly serious when deliberately asking such a redundant question… “A, you’re a teasing arsehole, and B, we could meet.”

“You’re right on both counts,” was the smooth answer. “How’s six PM sound, for Sunday?”

“Meeting each other halfway, or me heading over?”

“Oh, definitely halfway.”

_Don’t think about his tone,_ Xi told himself, biting his lip. _Just listen to the words, and reply normally._ But the ability to be cool about the hookup—and it _was_ a hookup, no matter how hard they tried to dress it up as them ‘meeting’—had utterly deserted him. “Hotel?” he found himself asking, his voice low, his breathing slightly sped up.

“Yes. We can do—how does this one look?”

[MrJiong]: <address of hotel-du-lac> ?

[XiErXi]: [thumbs up]

[XiErXi]: it’s a little bit further from you, though?

“Actually, it’s one of the few places without a bar that’s still easily reachable for me,” Captain Jiong said. “Bars mean I’d have a far too high chance of running into someone from my team, or worse, someone from one of my old teams.”

“Wait, wait, are you saying you’re not out?” Because if Xi had to put up with doing the kind of covert sneaking around that _that_ required, he wasn’t sure he’d want to get into anything with this man.

“I’m out, it’s just, I’ve not dated, at least not publicly, since I switched over to Fields of Valour from Hallows,” was the hesitant explanation. “And, uh, when I _was_ playing Hallows, I was a bit…”

Xi, already having pulled up a search window to double check the possible bullshit he was being fed, couldn’t help but widen his eyes at what he’d found. _HALLOWS’ WHORES: AN EXPOSE_ , _RAUNCHY ROMP FOR THE RUNNER-UPS_ , _FILTH IN THE FINALS_ , _BETTING BLOWIES ‘NO BIG DEAL’_ , _STARMIKE’S SLEAZY ESCAPADES_ … that was just the tip of the iceberg for what came up under ‘starmike gay’, and though most of it was at least eight years old, there were a couple slightly more recent ‘then and now’ type articles. “What I’m seeing in search looks like much more than ‘a bit’,” Xi murmured. “What actually happened?”

“The Hallows scene was… unique,” Captain Jiong said. “Nearly everyone in the pro scene came up from this circle of local tourneys held by internet cafes in the neighbourhood. We were all young, and hormonal, and that plus a few bigger-than-expected sponsorships, and the game going viral for a bit, it all kind of meant a lot of drama.”

“…right,” Xi said, not sure whether he should be more disturbed by the gulf between Captain Jiong’s responsible appearance and his thoroughly debauched past, or the fact that he’d managed to keep any further debauchery so tightly under wraps that none of the eSports tabloids could even get a sniff of it. “Well, I suppose that’s, um, that’s definitely a reason to keep a low profile.”

“I won’t say that it’d be, you know, catastrophic, if someone saw us and passed it on to the wrong person, it’s just that the tone of the speculation might be, at least in the short term…”

“Unpleasant?” A reluctant skim through _HALLOWS’ WHORES_ was certainly that, the article being a seething soup of fervent, moralistic outrage with a prurient emphasis on every dirty detail that could be dug up or inferred. The female players that had been involved naturally got the short end of the stick, but the treatment of the gay or bisexual male players wasn’t much better, especially if they were bottoms, as starmike had been rumoured to be.

“It really depends on who gets the tip-off,” Captain Jiong said. “ _Game Weekly_ would call me for quotes, butcher them, and spin it as a reformed man falling into you and your cousin’s, I mean non-cousin’s sinister plot to snatch a spot on the main roster.”

“How charming.”

“ _Tab Target_ would have an opinion piece saying I was back to my old tricks, and _Quick Clicks_ would echo them, but also imply that hard drugs were involved, and add that you might have taken money from our opponents to drag down my team’s performance.”

“So are you trying to say we _shouldn’t_ meet up and fuck?”

“Oh, definitely not. I’m just, I think it’s fair that you’ve a heads up about what it might be like, if, if this isn’t just…”

“A one night stand?” Xi didn’t know quite how to feel, saying that; much as he felt relieved that there wasn’t any kind of heavy expectation in play for their future relationship, he also couldn’t help but feel a little sad that Captain Jiong might not want anything more than a casual fuck.

“Oh, I think we can stretch to at least three nights, don’t you?”

“We’ll see,” Xi said, unable to keep back a smile. “I really should sign off now, I’ve got a shitload of work backed up.”

“Oh, I’m—I totally forgot you were technically still at work, sorry…”

* * *

[jjcool]: you did WHAT???

[XiErXi]: 囧

[jjcool]: heolllll!!!!!!2

[jjcool]: have you fucked? Was he good? Are you keeping him??

[XiErXi]: omg what kind of whore do you take me for?? NO, no of course we haven’t fucked

[jjcool]: aiiiieeeee just what is this…

[XiErXi]: that’s scheduled for next week [smirk]

[jjcool]: !!

[jjcool]: get it boy!!

[jjcool]: oh wait, I forgot, new format right?

[jjcool]: get it~ get it~

[XiErXi]: ugghhhhh don’t remind meeeee

For you see, though common mores and all prevailing theory regarding how one should conduct oneself in the august presence of One’s Crush generally emphasized putting your best foot forward, it had been all too clear that Captain Mike Star, a.k.a. Captain Jiong, a.k.a. the dreaded jiongjiong, had somehow managed to spend all twenty-five years of his shameless life entirely unaware of that key fact. Though he was well-mannered enough to keep the worst of his mannerisms to their private chat, and to never spam anything in said chat while Xi was busy working or streaming, it just meant that the full horror of his jiong hit even harder whenever there was sufficient time and privacy available.

Consider, if you dare, the time that Xi scrounged up enough courage to ask an exploratory question regarding who would top:

[MrJiong]: ah, regarding that~

[MrJiong]: don’t believe the rumours~

[MrJiong]: even though jiongjiong looks like this, jiongjiong has always preferred to top~

[XiErXi]: what do you mean, looks like this, looks like fucking what?

[XiErXi]: no matter how you look at it, don’t you look more fucking manly than me??

[MrJiong]: well~ you see~

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong used to look like this: [cute young jiongjiong.jpg]

[XiErXi]: …hey

[XiErXi]: WTF happened to you since then???

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong was still growing then~

[XiErXi]: no fucking kidding

[MrJiong]: ah~ um~ can jiongjiong ask~

[XiErXi]: obviously you fucking can! god!!1!

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong worries that Xi-er… that Xi prefers the old jiongjiong…

[XiErXi]: …this kind of thing

[XiErXi]: why the everloving FUCKK would I be salivating over you right now if you weren’t the type I really like??

[MrJiong]: aha~ [blushes]

[XiErXi]: how the fuck can you blush!!!1

[XiErXi]: were you seriously fxxing fishing for compliments

[MrJiong]: nooo~ jiongjiong wouldn’t~

[XiErXi]: you obviously fucking would!!! shameless!!

[MrJiong]: ahh~ nooo~ jiongjiong isn’t shameless~

[XiErXi]: in what possible fucking way???

[XiErXi]: if YOU aren’t shameless then WTAF does the word even mean????

[MrJiong]: but~ but~ jiongjiong can feel shame~

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong still feels ashamed of how much milk jiongjiong has spilled out while watching Xi’s stream~

As you can see, if it wasn’t one type of shamelessness, it was definitely the other.

[XiErXi]: you…!!! Milk? MILK??

[XiErXi]: are you fuckin TWELVE???

[MrJiong]: ah, but~

[MrJiong]: God Xi-er already thinks jiongjiong is shameless though~

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong can’t use those wicked words in front of God Xi-er~

There wasn’t much one could say in the face of such rotten meng, especially when pretending not to see it only resulted in the following kind of tears:

[MrJiong]: ah~ ah~ tomorrow ah ah~

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong’s xiao3 jiong is excited ah~ ah~

[XiErXi]: we’re now meeting at 7 pm instead of 6 pm, right? Because of your team thing?

[MrJiong]: right~ right~

[XiErXi]: cool, ok

[MrJiong]: yup~ yup~ yup~

[MrJiong]: …

[MrJiong]: um…

[XiErXi]: what’s up?

[MrJiong]: has jiongjiong done something wrong…?

[MrJiong]: God Xi is so quiet… it’s really worrying…

[XiErXi]: what, you want me to call you a poisonous meng-heap with shit~ for fucking~ brains~ only~ full~ of~ these~ fucking~ goddamn~ TILDES~~~????

[MrJiong]: !!

[MrJiong]: as expected~ it’s better when Xi-er’s words are full of curses~

[XiErXi]: is your brain fuxxing broken???

[MrJiong]: nooo~ but~

[MrJiong]: how to put it~

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong feels lonely if Xi-er doesn’t scold~

[XiErXi]: [head in hands.gif]

[XiErXi]: are you gonna do this fucking BS with your cock in my ass?

[MrJiong]: no~ no~ jiongjiong wouldn’t dare~

In other words, he most definitely fucking would!!

Infuriated, embarrassed to death, Xi tried to talk himself into cancelling their little hotel tryst, just in the interest of not having to endure this sort of behaviour in person. But every time he forced himself to imagine how awful it would feel when Captain Jiong made up to him in true jiongjiong fashion, he kept getting mortifyingly stuck on the thought of the captain pulling him close and saying, in that low, sinful voice, “Jiongjiong wants to drink your milk…”

Disgusting! Unforgivable!! That just thinking of such a thing could make Xi hard, and not just hard, but hard as a motherfucking rock…!

Shamed, conflicted, and still horny as fuck, Xi finally decided that there was no point slapping his own face by trying to convince himself that he was above buying the jiong meng. Who knows, perhaps the effect would be different in person, and enough of a let-down that he could thereafter cut off this fucking jiong _fuck_ without a qualm.

In that light, he decided that his final question for the night would be a purely sensible, and probably not at all jiongjiong-able:

[XiErXi]: everything else aside, what should I be calling you?

[MrJiong]: [blushes]

[MrJiong]: is it, um… can it just be ‘jiong’?

[XiErXi]: …

[XiErXi]: ok, calling you mike

[MrJiong]: ah, but~ please~

[MrJiong]: it’s always been jiongjiong’s nickname

[XiErXi]: do i look fucking stupid??

[XiErXi]: who the fuck would believe you right now??

[MrJiong]: I promise I’m serious

[MrJiong]: I know I kind of made it a thing in your stream’s chat, but

[MrJiong]: it’s seriously what my family calls me

[XiErXi]: …

[XiErXi]: why????

[MrJiong]: well, since jiongjiong used to look like that, it sort of stuck~

[MrJiong]: when jiongjiong was even younger than that, jiongjiong looked even more jiong~

Xi, despite his instinctive disbelief, couldn’t help but scroll all the way back up to take another look at the picture Captain Jiong had sent. In the captain’s defence, the very large-eyed, innocent-looking fifteen-year-old he’d used to be had looked a little tremulous even when smiling. Xi could easily imagine a much younger version of that same boy, and the kind of bullied expression he would have made when his family members forced such an unwanted nickname on him.

[XiErXi]: I’m still not fucking calling you jiong

[MrJiong]: [crying]

[MrJiong]: [crying]

[MrJiong]: [crying]

[XiErXi]: shut up!!!!!

[MrJiong]: Xi-er is so mean ah~ [face full of tears.jpg]

[MrJiong]: so mean~ [tears overflowing]

[XiErXi]: isn’t it what you fucking like?! FUCK!!

[MrJiong]: [blushes]

[MrJiong]: Xi-er shouldn’t say it so openly… [blushes]

[MrJiong]: if Xi-er will say it like that, jiongjiong will get hard [blushes]

[XiErXi]: get hard???

[XiErXi]: you have the actual fxcking nerve to

[XiErXi]: I hope you get so hard that you fucking die!!!!!!!!!!!!!

* * *

  1. **gap (moe):** Japanese term for the charm of when there’s a marked difference between someone’s appearance and their actual behaviour↩

  2. **heol:** Korean slang word, used to express shock, surprise or sarcasm↩

  3. **Xiao (Name):** ‘ **Xiao** ’’ is a Chinese prefix meaning ‘little’. It’s often used this way to refer to someone the speaker is familiar with or fond of. In certain contexts, it’s also used as a cutesy/roundabout way to refer to someone’s cock, which is what the rotten jiongjiong is doing in this case.↩





	6. You're really always like this…?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ready to be disappointed, Xi shows up at a certain hotel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The smut arrives, whoohoo~
> 
> Edit: have updated story tags to better reflect sexual kinks + tropes that tend to show up in the story.

The day of reckoning dawned bright and cheery, the sunlight strong enough that it made a mockery of the hard-earned reputation of Westhope’s typical spring weather. Xi, like many other unfortunate Westhope residents, smiled at the sunlight in the morning, cursed at his failing air conditioner in the afternoon, and felt nothing but utter relief once the sun finally began to go down.

He did the usual pre-fuckdate things. Showered, but hastily, because he’d likely get sweaty enough on the subway that he’d want to shower again at the other end. Primping and choosing what to wear didn’t take very long, half because Xi couldn’t help but be aware that Captain Jiong had seen him in everything from ratty beige singlets to pyjama tops with hideous ducks on, and half because he was once again quite convinced that dealing with Jiong face to face would stave off any chance that Xi would need to worry about if his flabby self looked good enough in this particular style of boxers.

He told Janey, and then, on second thought, Bertram, where he was going. In Bertram’s case, he neglected to indicate just who he was tentatively planning to fuck at said hotel, just because he knew how much shit he’d get if it became apparent that it was _that_ MrJiong, the one Bertram, aka Fan B, had lately been developing a semi-serious rivalry with.

In a way, their rivalry had been inevitable from the very moment Captain Jiong did his best to try and buy out the mixed bun sets at the big bun event a couple months ago. Bertram, though usually not the kind of person that derived an intrinsic joy in whaling and flashing cash on stream, had a self-instituted tradition of blowing his (admittedly quite large) monthly fun fund on baked goods whenever possible. He didn’t just do that on Xi’s stream, either; he was moderately well known for that kind of laser-focused whaling amongst a certain kind of foodie streamer.

Bertram’s stream was itself a fortnightly affair, an irregular occurrence with a low view count and a handful of subs. He broadcast a mishmash of clips of himself opening and eating and commenting on the baked goods that had caught his fancy that month, and occasionally roped in his mother, an even stricter judge of quality, in order to decide which cake or bun or pastry had topped the charts this time. Though low on views, his stream VODs were diced up and widely shared around by fans of the streamers, bakeries and patisseries that he sourced his treats from, and Bertram took it as a point of pride that his VOD channel was a significant generator of traffic to many popular foodie streams.

For his efforts to prosper, Bertram required at least three or four copies of the baked goods he reviewed. Even when his mother didn’t feature on stream, she demanded a share of the haul, and showcasing interesting fillings sometimes required the sacrifice of one or more of each pastry. And of course there had to be a couple extras left over for him to savour, or, in Bertram’s words, what would be the ever-loving fucking point?

Captain Jiong had placed before him a mighty roadblock during Xi’s big bun event; instead of his usual harvest of two bun six-packs and a couple additional two-packs, i.e. around four buns of each type, Bertram had only managed to snag one six-pack and one two-pack, and he had been furious at being reduced to /rolling and hoping for the best. Annoyed, he’d taken to doing his best to troll MrJiong in Xi’s chat whenever feasible, spending money now and then to hoist the flag of the anti-jiong cause.

Never mind how successful said flag-hoisting was—personally, Xi felt the only effect was to popularize jiongjiong disease by making sure everyone in the chat knew exactly what it was—it was Bertram’s determined effort, and thus something not to be criticized unless he was in a receptive mood. The right mood meant he would storm and sneer and whine but would take what you said to heart, and the wrong mood meant he would listen in quiet and become extremely determined to specifically flout your advice.

Needless to say, Bertram’s current mood was the last thing Xi wanted to be thinking of as he entered the lobby of the hotel he and Captain Jiong were to meet at. However…

“Small fucking world, hey?” Bertram said, brightly, having long since spotted Xi at the entrance and tagged along on the way in. “I thought you’d already be in a room by now. Is lover boy late?”

“Oh my god, Bertie, don’t _ask_ ,” the woman that had drifted in alongside him said, nudging him in the side. From the way he winced and mock-glared at her, it had been a pretty solid hit. “Look how nervous he already is, d’you think he really wants to worry about whether his amour will be standing him up?”

“Hey, hey, how’s it me who’s bad for asking, eh?” Bertram cried out. “ _I_ only said he might be late; _you’re_ the one that has him fucking ditching our Xi.”

“Well, but if he’s late, doesn’t it usually follow that—”

“Xi?” As if by magic, that warm, smooth voice was only just loud enough to be heard over both Bertram and his lady love’s spirited, silly argument. “I’m not too late, am I?”

Xi turned around immediately, half relieved, half anxious that something else would go wrong if he didn’t collect up the captain and spirit him away before he could give vent to any suspicious behaviours. However, instead of loudly, cheerily greeting him while simultaneously reaching out to tow him off toward the lifts, Xi instead found himself momentarily dumbstruck.

The words that had once given away his embarrassing crush on this man suddenly seemed all too appropriate; _against the motherfxxing heavens_ was Captain Jiong’s appearance to the nth degree. Cap and hoodie were still in effect, but were worn over a crisp blue shirt and dark, avidly expensive-looking jeans. As he came to a stop right in front of Xi, he was stripping off sleek leather gloves, an action that made Xi both hungry and regretful. Hungry because my god, those hands, those _fingers_ , and regretful because Xi really would have liked to be the one performing that glorious service, whether with hands or teeth…

“Oh, my,” the woman said. “Come on then, B, let’s not be gooseberries, come on, come on.”

“But I,” Bertram protested, even as he very easily let his lover drag him off by the collar, “what, I can’t even say hi?” Naturally, the moment he was well out of the captain’s line of sight, he grinned, giving Xi the most obnoxious thumbs-up known to man, and then followed it up with an exaggerated ‘ok’ sign, as if the previous gesture could possibly have been missed. “Catch you later, Xixi!”

 _Fuck off,_ Xi very much wanted to say, but because Captain Jiong was there and Very Tall and smiling down at him, he couldn’t bring himself to do anything but smile back. And then say, without quite meaning to, quite like the biggest fucking lecher in the whole universe: “Shall we go up?”

“Yes, please.” Somehow, those two simple words made Xi flush all over. “After you.”

“Mmm, right.” _Jesus fucking Christ, I sound like a fucking robot, and I’m already half-hard, this is unbelievable._ But Xi’s searing feeling of embarrassment didn’t stop him from swanning into the nearest unoccupied lift and instructing it to take them to their pre-booked room. He felt somehow as if his limbs weren’t all fitting together; god only knew how he managed the walk in and the lean against the back wall with what he thought was a decent amount of grace.

Next to Captain Jiong’s somewhat rolling stride, Xi felt his own to be somehow mincing, but as always, feeling inferior only made him play up his usual mannerisms. He didn’t know whether or not it was a mistake. He didn’t quite dare look directly at the good captain, either, which was ten different kinds of stupid. _You’re not sixteen anymore,_ Xi told himself, but still couldn’t manage to drag his gaze any higher than Captain Jiong’s broad, blue-shirted chest, or, more accurately, Captain Jiong’s solid thighs.

“Cold feet?”

“Hmm?” Xi finally looked up, seeking to meet the other man’s gaze, only to immediately feel like he could have done very well without it. _Teasing_ didn’t fully describe the look in Captain Jiong’s eyes, or the expression on his solid, reliable face; it was the first time that Xi really empathized with poor Claire and her constant raging against the man’s duplicity. “You—obviously I’m not—”

“Is it really obvious?” Captain Jiong said, lifting his eyebrows, his tone now puzzled, his expression decidedly not. “You won’t even look me in the eye, what else am I supposed to think?”

There was something really quite frightening about how—now _whiny_ he could make the latter half of that sound, just by using a slightly louder voice, lifting his tone at the end and furrowing his brow just so. Those words, those bloody words were nothing more and nothing less than the purest distillation of jiong, the exact sort of thing that wouldn’t sound surprising spat out of MrJiong’s mouth, and the worst thing was, Xi couldn’t even find anything in them to pick on as too embarrassing to be said in public.

“You,” he found himself saying, helplessly, “you’re really always like this?” Just saying those words made Xi feel like he’d already lost; when Jiong shifted over to stand deliberately close to him, he didn’t know how to react. “Can you not…”

“If Xi-er really wants me to stop,” was the low, teasing answer, “jiongjiong can stop.”

What the fuck was this guy’s voice, huh? Was it some kind of god-level bug?? Why, at a time like this, hearing that kind of thing, from a tall, solid, unmistakable man, was stupid Xiao Xi standing up like a fucking pillar??!

“Disgusting,” Xi found himself saying, his tone so harsh and hoarse that he may as well have just swooned unto the captain’s arms directly. “God, I can’t believe I’m actually fucking going to do this with trash like you.” The warmth of Jiong’s body being so close to his was already too distracting; when the other man lifted his hand to brush the backs of his fingers against the side of Xi’s neck, it felt like a brand and a provocation all at once. “Don’t.”

“Oh? But—”

“Save it for the fucking room,” Xi snapped, only to find himself somewhere between disappointed and irritated when the captain withdrew his hand. “Oh what, _now_ you’ll listen to me?”

“It’s no problem,” was the infuriatingly normal reply. “We’re almost at the room, aren’t we?” Naturally, that was the very moment the treacherous lift chose to shiver to a halt. “See?”

Things only went downhill from there. They reached the room all right, but instead of going in like a normal couple, or perhaps only kissing or fondling each other for a few breathless moments before opening the room door, they ended up— _Xi_ ended up half-crushed, half-fainting against the cool metal of the door, biting down on the inside of his own palm to keep from moaning too loudly as he came all over the captain’s hot, hard hands.

It had begun as flirting, the captain following Xi too closely, then hugging him from behind, his treacherous hands stroking up and down Xi’s front. Then his hands moved all the way down to squeeze Xi’s cock, and there went any chance of getting the stupidly archaic door lock to cooperate.

“Can I?” Captain Jiong’s voice was even lower than normal, and though his fingers were still teasing the slick head of Xi’s twitching, sensitive cock, the way he was pressing his own erection right up against Xi’s arse made it clear what he was asking for. “I can lick you.”

“I-inside,” Xi managed to say. Somehow the stupid door finally cooperated, hissing open just at the wrong time, so that he stumbled forward and fell, rolling clumsily to minimize the impact. “Shit!”

“You—fuck, are you okay?”

“No, I’m just—the door—are you seriously fucking _laughing_? Whose fucking fault—”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” was the strained answer, followed by, instead of a hand up, or any other kind of sensible, appropriate assistance, Captain Jiong sinking to his knees to pounce on Xi’s prone, sprawling form. Xi, annoyed that even this mercenary behaviour couldn’t kill his arousal, tried his very best to kick the captain in the thigh or the knee, only to end up halfway in the captain’s lap, being fondled and fingered until his toes curled. “That alright?”

“You kn-know it is, you jiongjiong fuck,” Xi said, breathlessly. He was _so_ glad he’d prepared himself beforehand, he didn’t know how in god’s name he’d have borne more than a little bit of this sort of teasing. The captain had fairly average-sized fingers, but the way he used them—the force, the varying speed, the way he would curl them a bit, now and then, pressing in just the right spot, but not enough, not enough… “I fucking hate you.”

“You know,” Captain Jiong said, his voice still hoarse, his tone mockingly serious, “I really would be okay with you calling me Mike, if you want.”

Now he was working his fingers in and out of Xi’s clenching asshole even more slowly, in and out and deep in again, and Xi was fast losing patience. “Can you _please_ just fucking get on with it?”

“How can I possibly manage that, with you like this?” His wicked fingers twisted deep inside Xi, rubbing that spot again and again. “Look at you. Look how hard you are again already.”

“I’m…” Xi hardly knew if he were trying to defend himself or not. By now, the captain had forced him to spread his thighs wide, and was looking down over his shoulder, and even with Xi’s belly and untucked shirttails in the way, there was no way to miss the slick, purplish tip of Xi’s newly vigorous erection standing up from the fly of his haphazardly unzipped jeans. “Please…”

“All right,” was the shockingly sudden answer, and before Xi quite knew what was happening, Captain Jiong had moved the two of them, half dragging, half shoving Xi over to the bed. Xi had just enough time to register that he was being stripped of his jeans and forced onto his hands and knees before he felt the captain’s hands squeezing and spreading his arse cheeks, exposing his hole completely. “Mmm.”

“W-wait, I— _ah_ — _nhn_ —” Feeling the captain’s hot, wet tongue _there_ was a tremendous shock. It was—it felt immeasurably filthy. Xi trembled, and heard himself moan long and low, like the shameless whore he felt he was, no, _knew_ he was, at this moment. They’d barely even kissed, and now, they probably wouldn’t, because Xi was a picky fucking hypocrite like that, loving the feel of a semi-stranger’s tongue in his arse but not wanting to deal with the aftermath. “I’m… I’ll, I’m almost—”

For answer, the captain withdrew his tongue, then pressed a hot, wet, lewd-feeling kiss against Xi’s twitching hole. “Do you think you can take me now?” he said, his voice low. Concerned, in a way Xi could barely get the wits to make sense of. “I don’t know, I think you need a little more.”

“N-no! No, I— _ah_!” Now there was lube as well, and it was warm and slick, and instead of a teasing tongue, there were now three thick fingers, and they were just lightly pressing in. Nowhere near enough. “ _Please_ …”

“I don’t know what you want.”

“You—you _fucker_.” Cursing at him was entirely ineffective; the way Xi’s voice broke on nearly every word made it sound like begging instead, and he’d already done that, and it hadn’t helped. “Please!”

“Please, what?”

Xi was shaking, half with rage, half with a searing mixture of pleasure and pain and tortured expectation. He wanted—he _needed_ to be fucked, and here was this fucking, this jiong motherfucker trying to make him lower his head and beg for it. “You fuck,” he heard himself whimper. “If—i-if you don’t, if you don’t fucking do it, I’ll kill you.”

All that prompted from his tormentor was a brief, slightly breathless chuckle. “That’s more like it,” the captain said, shifting back, withdrawing his fingers just as slowly and tortuously as he had first inserted them. “You want me inside you, then?”

Wordlessly, Xi rocked back against him, desperate to feel more of that hot, thick cock. It was going to hurt a bit if it happened now, if the evil captain finally put Xi out of his misery and crammed his arse with that cock, but he needed it. Xi could already imagine the slight burn, the fullness, the pressure; he hated Jiong for holding out so easily, ignoring his desperate writhing in favour of squeezing his arse and reaching up to unbutton his shirt and twist at his nipples. “Fucking just… if you’re only going to—to feel up my fucking tits—”

“Honestly, I’d really like to give them a nice, hard suck,” Captain Jiong said, punctuating those low, heated words with pointed squeezes, “but I really can’t put this off anymore, can I?”

The first stroke was bliss, just bliss. So much sweet pressure, filling Xi up just right. “Fuck, but you’re tight,” Captain Jiong murmured. “Mmm…”

Xi sobbed, arching back into the next deep, slow stroke, and the next, and the next. Each time Jiong thrust in, he took advantage, reaching around to twist a nipple or give Xi’s stiff, aching cock a brief, teasing tug. Gradually, his thrusts sped up, until their momentum together was unmistakable, making the bed shift and creak beneath them.

Xi could barely breathe. The captain was going at him so thoroughly now, with rapid, shallow strokes, as if he feared that letting up would mean Xi wriggling out of reach. As if he couldn’t tell that that was the last thing on Xi’s mind right now, if only from the way Xi kept letting out half-swallowed moans.

“Aren’t— _hgh_ —aren’t you glad I made you wait?” Captain Jiong leaned in behind him, his panting breaths hot against the back of Xi’s neck. “Think how much this’d sting, if I hadn’t been got you so open and wet.”

“Fucking _shut up_ ,” Xi couldn’t help but snarl, so far beyond his tether that he’d have given the other man a slap if he could get the breath or the steady hands to manage it. It was still so good, so fucking good that he knew he was kidding himself, he knew that if he’d been on his back and taking it and well within reach to slap Jiong’s stupid serious face, he’d just have ended up trying to pull him down closer instead.

A sudden change of pace was the last straw. Four deep thrusts, each one pounding in at just the right spot, had Xi clenching and spilling all over the wrinkled bedsheets, gasping and sobbing as he did so. Jiong didn’t slow down even an iota, and he didn’t stop those cruelly precise strokes, that relentless rubbing of Xi’s prostate, and soon, Xi found himself arching back again, crying out as his aching, half-erect cock spilled again, spattering more sticky liquid onto the existing mess between his widely spread knees.

“That enough?” All right, there was that urge to punch Jiongjiong again, to just reach out and thoroughly, no, _vigorously_ slap him…! “Is it enough for my Xi-er?”

“Shut up,” Xi sobbed, but already his treacherous heart wasn’t in it. How the hell could it feel good to hear that, when he knew it was only the usual joke, only the usual attempt to get under his skin? But there was something in Captain Jiong’s low, somewhat breathless voice, something that wasn’t quite just teasing, but also a genuine desire to know. A desire to please. “Y-you bastard, finish up already.”

“Xi-er wants something that dirty?” This was clearly teasing too, but still—somehow—“Xi-er wants my filthy cum in his arse?”

“Y-yes.” Surely it wouldn’t hurt to play along just this once. “Yes, please.”

The captain groaned. “You’ll have to help,” he murmured. “Wring me out.”

“I—I can’t.”

“You want me to fill your arse, don’t you? Don’t you want it?”

The truth was, Xi was already doing it, helplessly squeezing down around the now slow, steady intrusion within him. It felt bigger like that, and he was almost—shamefully—back to being hard again, his cursed heritage picking just the wrong time to betray him.

“That’s it,” Captain Jiong said, hoarsely. “Help me fill you up— _ungh_ , fuck…” His thrusts sped up, breaking out of their former, steady rhythm, his hands tightening their grip on Xi’s hips. He bent in close, so close that Xi could feel his final, telling shiver. “Mmm. So fucking good.”

“You didn’t need to take that fucking long,” Xi complained, weakly. At least he wasn’t all the way hard again, just clearly half-hard, so he didn’t look like a complete liar. “Wait, w-what are you— _nnh_ —”

“I’m supposed to just ignore this?” Jiong said, his voice rough, his molesting hands right back where they’d started out at the beginning of this filthy journey of theirs, teasing and stroking Xi’s slick, over-sensitized cock. “You expect me to believe you don’t need it again?”

“I’ll…” But Xi couldn’t finish his complaint that he would just be made even more sore, because he could feel the slow, marked thickening of Jiong’s cock inside him. “Fine,” he spat, though it only really came out as an indignant, broken whisper. “I need it. I fucking need it.”

“Good that you know,” Jiong murmured, and somehow, again, the smugness of that statement just fed into Xi’s contrary arousal, stoking his shameless need even higher. “That’s it, just like that, Xi. So tight now, you’re so fucking tight…”


	7. …Again??

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fun doesn't stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick note on something I didn't mention earlier on about the setting: as a true cnovel aspirant, this story, in addition to being set in the far future, also features 'genmods', a blanket term for various subspecies of the human race. I.e. my very handwavy excuse for having seductive hucow and were-something expies all over the place. The genmod wars/struggles being very much a thing of the past means that your great-gran being a siren or your shitty dad coming from a line of grizzly weresoldiers is just a talking point, and usually has little effect on your day to day life.

Xi didn’t want to think of how many times his ass was praised, then fucked, then praised again. They’d stopped on what was possibly the sixth fevered round, since Xi’s trembling thighs had given out, but lying down and recovering together had very soon turned into lying down and making out together.

Or, more correctly, Xi lying down and trying very weakly to keep Captain Jiong from licking and sucking his aching nipples. He felt caught between feeling self-conscious about that laser-like focus on his soft, slightly flabby chest and feeling stupidly relieved he didn’t need to reject the captain’s kiss after all his hard work.

Then Jiongjiong—Xi was starting to know what that too-serious expression of his meant—looked down at Xi’s very soft, slightly sticky dick and looked back up again, a clear question in his gaze. “No,” Xi insisted. “I’m—I’m not…”

But his cock was already twitching a bit, plumping up with every long, slow lick from Jiongjiong’s wet tongue. “Can’t Xi-er let jiongjiong try and taste a bit?”

“You!” Xi tried to sit up, only for a clever, targeted shift in weight from Captain Jiong to press him back down to the bed. “You _fuck_! Waiting all this time to—who the, w-who the fuck told you to say that and lick—ugh—”

More long licks, so gentle and sensuous in contrast with the firm grip of Jiong’s hand around the base, and the unmoving weight of Jiong’s body still keeping Xi from being able to rise up and fight back. “Xi-er,” he said, in a way that made Xi want to shiver, “when you’re like this, it’s really… Mmh. Really makes me want to hold you down and eat you up.”

“Try it,” Xi snarled. “Just you fucking try and… huh?”

There was something uniquely embarrassing about this kind of moment, when you dove head first into the task of tussling in bed with someone only to see them stop and raise their hands and cry uncle, then look at you as if you were the weird one for—for—alright, in this case, Xi probably _was_ the weird one, sort of. “What?” he couldn’t help but say, trying not to sound as impatient as he felt. “I’m into it, it’s fine, just—y’know.”

Fidgeting wasn’t the most conducive thing to getting the mood back on track, but Xi couldn’t help it, not when Jiongjiong—no, just Jiong—was eyeing him so carefully, clearly trying to read something from his annoyed expression. “You’re really okay with me holding you down?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Xi said, emphatically, then felt a little bad for doing it, because he didn’t remember their really stopping to chat about this sort of thing at any point earlier on tonight. “I mean, I don’t like, I’m not saying I’m into doing much heavier stuff than just, you know, a bit of force now and then, but I wouldn’t mind you holding me down.”

“Alright,” was the low, somewhat subdued answer. “Well, then.” And then Xi, who had sat up a bit to emphasize his point, was summarily pressed down again, his wrists pinned by his sides, his cock engulfed in a hot, wet, merciless mouth that didn’t slow when he begged it to, and refused to speed up when he demanded it, and generally reduced him to a whining, sobbing mess.

“Please,” he whispered, for what had to be the fiftieth time. “What… just, what will it take…?”

Silence, as usual, was the only response, silence followed by another long, teasing lick, not enough, not enough, not fucking enough—“ _Please_!”

Xi didn’t know if it was his broken tone, or the way he could no longer keep himself from struggling that moved Captain Jiong. “Xi-er needs to promise,” he said, hoarsely, while ruthlessly pumping Xi’s cock with his hand just slowly enough that Xi couldn’t keep from thrusting into his teasingly loose grip even though he knew it wouldn’t ease his raging need to come. “Xi-er needs to suck mine well too.”

“Fine, I’ll—I’ll do it, I’ll do anything, just— _nngh_ , fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ …”

Afterwards came the reckoning. First, Xi fought the battle to rouse himself enough to get up from the bed, when the captain’s solid warmth was right beside him, tempting him with the possibility of long, sleepy hugs. Next, he fought the awkwardness of having to, no, _choosing_ to head for the bathroom after dragging himself upright, all while promising he wasn’t trying to escape his solemn promise. “It’s like he thinks I’ll climb out the fucking window,” Xi muttered to himself, even as he picked out a smallish towel, then soaked it in warm water. “We’re on what, the fortieth floor, at least? I’d die even if I’d fucking fit…”

But once he hurried back out into the hotel room, he remembered again that he wasn’t dealing with normal—semi-normal—clingy, reassurance-seeking partner behaviour. For rather than lying in bed and continuing to pine and look just a little worried, Jiong had sat up against the headboard, his shoulders slouched, his eyes half-lidded in the way of someone casually browsing their feed on their internal HUD.

“Oh,” Xi couldn’t help but say, just a little loudly. “Looks like I might as well use this on myself, since you’re already bored.”

“Hey, hey, no,” Jiong said, blinking hard, sitting up just a little straighter. “I’m not bored, just. Checking messages, just in case.”

“Just in case the team practice room caught on fire while you were out?” At the very least, the bastard was still half-hard even after the brief wait; just two or three measured strokes with the dampened towel was enough to get him fully hard again. “You worry too much.”

“You might be right about that,” Jiong said, his now slightly uneven tone a small sop to Xi’s vanity. He liked to think that he was good at making something more of this kind of chore, transforming it from something he needed to do to feel more comfortable sucking a cock that had been, y’know, in his ass, into something both people could enjoy, if only just a bit. “You know, if, if really you’d rather not…”

“Shut up,” Xi said, and expended a decent chunk of his remaining strength in pinning together Jiong’s hands to his sides. “Touch my head, and I swear to god I’ll bite off your fucking hand.”

“Okay, okay…”

Silence.

Then, when the silence wasn’t really one anymore, when all Xi could hear were the wet, lewd sounds his own mouth was making…

_Still_ silence. Even though, even though Jiong’s cock was leaking, even though Jiong’s thighs had grown tense and strained under Xi’s eager touch, the closest thing to _non_ silence had been the little hitch in Jiong’s breath when Xi used the still-warm towel to pinch and squeeze the head of his cock.

Finally, Xi could bear it no more. He himself had always been loud—too loud, embarrassingly loud, and when he wasn’t drowning out his partner or echoing them, it was all too easy for him to become nervous and self-conscious. But since he didn’t want to be abrupt, didn’t want to ruin the mood, he tried to put together a suitable rhythm that would allow him to transition into a soft-voiced question. Lick, then suck, swallowing, slurping around the length in his mouth, leaning in and relaxing just a bit to see how much more he could fit…

“Get off,” Jiong said, his voice low and rough and panicked, and unfortunately the warning, and Xi’s attempt at withdrawal, wasn’t quite quick enough to keep him from being thoroughly splashed with come. “Fuck.”

“S’fine,” Xi muttered, licking up what had splashed on his mouth and chin first, then going after the stray, thin drips that had ended up on his hand. “It’s not much at this point, anyway.”

“You…”

“Hm?” A little bit had also ended up on the inside of Jiong’s bare thigh, so Xi leaned in to lick at that too, only to blink at the way Jiong tensed at that brief touch. “Should I not have…?”

“No,” was the unexpectedly rough answer. “No, that was definitely fine.”

“Oh?” Xi tried to keep his voice cool as he looked up, deliberately meeting Jiong’s hungry gaze. “You liked using my mouth?”

Silence answered him, silence and a slight, but somehow fervent nod.

“Hmm.” Xi knew he shouldn’t tease, but he couldn’t help himself; he bent close in, pressing wet kisses to Jiong’s taut, sweaty skin, licking little lines up his chest, stopping to briefly tease his stiff brown nipples with both lips and tongue. “Best hurry up, then.”

“Hh—what?”

“Go freshen up,” Xi murmured, with deliberately downcast eyes. “Then, maybe you can kiss me.”

He tried not to feel _too_ smug at how Jiong hurried to get out of bed and stride over to the bathroom. Yet, when the bathroom door came sliding open again, releasing an extremely determined-looking Captain Jiong back into the room, Xi couldn’t help but break into a smug grin.

They kissed, then, Jiong very nearly pinning him to the bed again, and though it wasn’t quite their first kiss, it felt exactly how one should be. Jiong wanted to taste him, wanted to lick his bottom lip and suck on the tip of his tongue, and Jiong’s hands were never still. He was always touching, always caressing every bit of Xi that he could reach.

“Sleep next, or…?”

“I really don’t know how on earth you’re still up for more of this,” Xi murmured. “Haven’t you fucking well wrung me dry already?” But he didn’t stop the good captain from stroking and squeezing him, or from leaning down to lap once more at his cock.

This final time, they ended up in a sloppy, messy sixty-nine, Xi on the bottom even though he didn’t usually like sweating under someone else’s weight, just because he couldn’t bear to quibble about it and risk ruining the mood. It was still good—perhaps too good, because, after they’d more or less got into position, it didn’t take long at all before Xi was panting and moaning around the cock in his mouth, losing the rhythm they’d built up, his hips jerking up, forcing his cock deeper into Jiong’s mouth.

In response, Jiong sucked even harder, and then bore down, thrusting himself into Xi’s mouth. Xi salivated, overwhelmed in every respect. He moaned, slurping noisily around the thick cock in his mouth, and he only realized he was coming when he felt Jiong’s warm, wet mouth pull off of him, replaced with a slick, merciless hand. He came back to himself moments later, only to flush all over, mortified at the way he was still moaning.

“You’re so hungry,” Jiong said, hoarsely, but he was moving his hips too, taking thorough advantage of Xi’s greedy mouth. “I don’t even know if I’ll come again.”

Xi had no words for him, no way to salvage the situation. He knew, in a hazy, detached way, that he was close to being out of control, that a lower-order function was online, and that he needed to take care. But it had been so long since he was like this, so long since he’d felt comfortable enough to just— _demand_ , to wrap his arms around a man and suck and slurp and swallow until he’d taken what he wanted.

At least the captain didn’t seem to mind his greedy behaviour. Fuck, he was thrusting even harder—was he going to come? Was he going to give Xi one more slick, salty mouthful to savour and swallow down?

If Xi hadn’t already just come, that would have been the moment for it, the moment it would have happened with no warning. He moaned again instead, afire with anticipation, dreadfully excited by both what he knew might be coming, and the stark thought of just how whorish he must look right now, pinned down and writhing, begging wordlessly for another man’s come.

Finally, Jiong’s thick cock began to twitch and spasm in his mouth. His come was even thinner this time, the bitter, salty spurts not nearly enough to fill Xi’s mouth, but Xi still shuddered, swallowing eagerly.

“Enough?” That one, hoarse word, taken on its own, would have made Xi worry that he’d overstepped somehow. But Jiong’s hand was stroking slowly up and down Xi’s stomach, so he felt he could just nod and relax. “Siren mix, I take it?”

“Mmph.”

“Oh, sorry, fuck.” One careful sideways shift later, Xi’s mouth was free again. “Sorry about that.”

“’S alright,” was all Xi was capable of muttering. He didn’t want to move, even though he knew he’d probably have to, being the only one laid out upside down on the bed. “My great-grandma was like. Um. Half siren?”

“That far back?”

“Mum number one thinks her dad might have had a bit too. He’s from Chrysal, it’s not impossible.”

“Hmm.”

“You?”

“That’s… I’ve never been tested. It’s really just not done, in our family.”

“Oh?” Xi couldn’t help but open his eyes, surprised, not by the admission, but by the way Captain Jiong had phrased it. He had a neutral, more or less city-style accent, and though he spoke well, it didn’t scream upper-class the way Xi had been half expecting after looking up all the gossip on his filthy rich family. But the moment Jiong said it that way—that it ‘wasn’t done’—

“I’ve always thought our ancestors were soldiers,” Captain Jiong said, then, and something about his tentative, musing tone made Xi relax. _Obviously, his family’s the type to be touchy about genmods,_ Xi thought, _but it looks like that’s them, not him._ “Some of the things I’ve seen, or that I remember from when I was growing up, definitely match that theory.”

“Ah.” Hopefully, he wasn’t the type to get a little too excited about that sort of thing; there was only so much Xi could stand to hear about shocking, primal instincts and sudden urges that most definitely had to be one’s heritage as a Berserker Prime Soldier rearing up, and not just your being strung out on the wrong drug mix. “Well, that’s just how it goes, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Anything I should watch out for?” Xi asked, hoping that courtesy question would be the end of it. “You know, just in case.”

“Oh, there’s nothing to worry about,” Jiong said, as expected, so Xi nodded in response, his eyes already half closed. “I’m not, like, I don’t transform, and there’s no need for you to, I mean, any aggression on my part’s obviously my problem.”

“Obviously,” Xi murmured, stifling a yawn. “Though I do think it’s a shame, you’d make a nice tiger. Or wait, it’s mostly panthers and wolves this side of the river, isn’t it?”

Jiong didn’t say anything for a long moment, being occupied in transporting the pillows from the head of the bed to the foot of it, an act that Xi couldn’t help feeling stupidly flattered by. “You really don’t mind?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Xi snuggled the pillow that had been offered to him. “Should I move? D’you want the blanket?”

“No point, it’s warm enough as it is,” was Jiong’s strangely pleased-sounding response. “Good night, Xi.”

“Hrn. G’night.”

* * *

The next morning dawned bright and early and full of telltale aches, with Captain Jiong’s tall form nowhere in sight. Xi, bleary-eyed and tender as anything in a certain spot, hardly knew whether to count it a blessing or not.

On the one hand, his body’s current state meant that Captain Jiong’s presence could strictly only be appreciated from a distance if he had been here. On the other hand, it felt a bit—lonely? Disenchanting? To wake up alone, with only a temporary, anonymous note in the hotel room’s message bin as evidence that anything had happened.

The note, in true jiongjiong style, read: “have to run, 囧囧囧.” There was no other message, not even a polite hotel system reminder about payment, because they’d already split the charge while they were booking the room.

Sighing, Xi watched the note self-destruct, telling himself not to get his hopes up. He’d had a good night, hadn’t he? He’d had such a good night that he’d gone into full on ‘feed me, Master~’ mode, for fuck’s sake. He’d like to be able to say it only happened towards the end, but he couldn’t be a hundred percent sure. At least the captain hadn’t been put off, or had at least been able to handle it well enough that Xi ended up conking out in a well-satisfied haze.

_Thank god I’m only a minor strain at best,_ Xi thought, stretching gingerly. And thank goodness that the dubious benefits of his siren ancestry didn’t stretch to anything more than having a more than usually good, strong singing voice. _God knows how long we’d have been stuck here, otherwise._

Great-Gran Winters, while she was still alive, had loved to laugh wickedly about the times she’d ended up, what was the way she’d put it, ‘mirror-locked’ with some handsome man or woman in her youth, but Xi didn’t think that sort of mishap would have gone over at all well in this case. _He_ could skive off work on short notice and get away with a brief scolding; Captain Jiong, on the other hand, would very likely have team management breathing down his neck almost immediately. If he had a particularly restrictive contract, say, one that stipulated a certain amount of hours of mandated practice, poor hypothetically sex-crazed Jiong might even have ended up facing some kind of breach of contract fine or penalty whenever he finally slunk back to work.

That Xi could not imagine Captain Michael Star deigning to sign anything so restrictive was besides the point. The point being that said captain had absconded without bothering to wake Xi up.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Xi mumbled, pushing his face further into the pillow. “Even if it does, it wasn’t—you knew it wouldn’t be serious. Fucking stop it.”

Sadly, though Xi very much wished to be philosophical and carefree, his brain was not at all co-operative. The train ride home was disagreeable purely because of his worsened mood; otherwise, the general discomfort of going home on a packed commuter train after being fucked all night would all have been water under the bridge.

His mood did not improve until, hours later, while he was lingering over a passable sandwich, his private chat with Jiong lit up.

[MrJiong]: *kowtows* *kowtows*

[XiErXi]: …

[MrJiong]: God Xi! May God Xi forgive!!!

[MrJiong]: the team house caught on fire!!!!

[XiErXi]: oh? And yet you still live? [cold smile]

[MrJiong]: 囧囧囧

[MrJiong]: seriously though, got called away

[MrJiong]: jungler and his sub gave themselves food poisoning

[MrJiong]: let me rephrase, all our fucking subs are down with this stuff, plus main jungler, plus assistant manager

[XiErXi]: yikes

[MrJiong]: luckily they should all mostly be fine by saturday, but. It’s a pain

[XiErXi]: I see, I see *strokes your hair*

[MrJiong]: [blushes]

[XiErXi]: wtaf are you fucking blushing at

[MrJiong]: [blushes] [blushes] [blushes]

[XiErXi]: …

Surely it wasn’t good to feel so annoyed, and yet also poisonously, treacherously flattered.

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong is sorry~ sorry~

[XiErXi]: [head in hands.jpg]

[MrJiong]: it’s just… well…

[XiErXi]: fine!! I get it!!! God!!!!!!!

[MrJiong]: *whispers* jiongjiong wants to be milked…

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong wants to do it in God Xi’s mouth……

[XiErXi]: hurry up and go back to work!! You jiongjiong f**k!


	8. Me, in a good mood? Not really! [devastating smile]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a certain hotel date, Xi very calmly moves on with his life.

After that, for a frighteningly long time, it was all smooth sailing.

Or, rather, in the words of Janey:

[jjcool]: fuck, i can’t even say anything to you these days

[XiErXi]: ??

[jjcool]: glowing so hard it makes me sick

[jjcool]: aren’t you just meeting like once a week at most?? How’s it that you’re smiling like you’re getting fucked every fucking night, huh???

[XiErXi]: well~

[jjcool]: UGGGHHHH just don’t even

[XiErXi]: you see~ when I stream~ a certain little jiong gets excited~

[jjcool]: …kill me now

[XiErXi]: it’s only kindness to take care of him afterwards, you know~

[XiErXi]: you’d do it too, if you were me~

[jjcool]: what fucking kindness

[jjcool]: there’s a 99% chance you’re just jacking off to _his_ voice every fuckin time

[XiErXi]: what can I say, ah~ you’re right ah~

[jjcool]: this jiongjiong disease of yours… *nods* yup, it’s terminal. Terminal.

[XiErXi]: correct~ correct~

In truth, Xi did not feel that he was in so obvious a good mood, at least not in a way readily apparent to fans on his stream. Perhaps he smiled more than usual, but then, that was also how he was at the start of summer proper, when the evil sun’s blistering rays and the city’s constant, muggy heat gave him free reign to devote himself to making easy salads, grilling various meats and turning out ice cream and other cold desserts by the bucketful.

So, for his stream fans, that smiling, relaxed time had perhaps come around a little early and a little out of season, but, other than that? Everything was normal.

> Fan ZZ: demanding to know! Just who is the scoundrel dazzling our good god Xi!!!

> Fan ZZ: how can us poor peasant fans withstand these smiles, these demonic smiles ah!!!

> XiXi: eh? I’m not smiling that much, though?

> Fan B is Fun B: but the power is higher, it’s definitely high this time ah

> swearmouse: petitioning to know~ petitioning to know~

Naturally Claire had been overjoyed by Xi’s carefully casual, detail-light announcement that he was indeed now seeing someone, an announcement he wouldn’t have bothered to make if Bertram hadn’t maliciously spilled the beans in chat the very day after Xi and Jiong’s first date. Since that time, if it wasn’t Claire bringing up the existence of Xi’s gorgeous mystery boyfriend, it was Bertram, or even Janey.

Claire and Bertram’s purpose in doing so was obvious: they relished the fact that Jiong never chipped in to ask for more details, and often went rather pointedly silent when everyone in chat was teasing Xi about the topic. Janey, on the other hand, much as she might pretend to cough up blood1 at Xi in their private chat, was also clearly relishing the fact that both Claire and Bertram had no idea that the man they were bullying and the man they were celebrating were one and the same.

Xi, happy as he was with the present state of things, could not help but feel somewhat reluctant to ever have to see the kind of reaction those two would have when they found out the truth. As it was, even though his meeting Jiong on the weekends to roll in the hay with him was starting to feel like a settled, established thing, Xi could not help but be acutely aware that it was all temporary, all a thing of coincidence (their randomly happening to get to know each other due to Claire being on just the right team) and their surprising sexual compatibility (shamefully self-explanatory). He had no idea if he would still be seeing the other man in a couple months; he didn’t even know if they were seeing each other exclusively at the moment.

Good as it felt to sing and cook and laugh and putter around on stream, knowing that Jiong was watching and waiting, looking forward to their heated post-stream entanglement, Xi could not feel completely at ease. That he hadn’t dated in months didn’t mean that he’d cast off all sense and start hoping uselessly for things he couldn’t have, but keeping a light, carefree heart in this kind of situation was easier said than done.

[MrJiong]: tired?

It didn’t help that Captain Jiong—and didn’t it just _sting_ that Xi found it so natural to keep calling him that? It didn’t help that, win or lose, rotten or not, this fucking guy was so very reliably attentive.

[XiErXi]: only a bit

[XiErXi]: puff pastry can be such a fucking pain lol, especially when it’s this hot

[MrJiong]: did you have to make it yourself this time?

[XiErXi]: supermarket didn’t have my brand today [crying]

[MrJiong]: which supermarket?!! How dare they offend the son of heaven!!! 2

[MrJiong]: such useless filth, God-Emperor Xi should allow this servant to punish with a thousand deaths!!!!

[XiErXi]: …haha

[XiErXi]: it’s fine~ it’s fine~

Sometimes, Xi hardly knew what his former self from three or four months ago would think of his laughing off things in this manner. But he couldn’t help but care a lot less about whatever shitty manner Jiong wished to use to forcibly fawn on him, not when enduring it a little (okay, okay, enduring it a lot) could mean such direct and delicious profits.

[XiErXi]: can you see me?

[MrJiong]: [blushes] [blushes]

[XiErXi]: this disrespectful servant!!! Tell zhen3 clearly if you can see, or else—!

[MrJiong]: [blushes]

[MrJiong]: this lowly servant is wicked… can the emperor please punish…

[MrJiong]: seeing the dragon body4 has made this lowly servant so excited…

[XiErXi]: let zhen hear you then. If your voice can please zhen, zhen may pardon your wickedness!

Let’s not look too closely at how Xi was adding to the problem here. It was Thursday night, which meant that Sunday was coming soon, but not soon enough, and last night had been a no-go due to a rash of extra team practices insisted on by management. Xi wanted—no, _needed_ satisfaction tonight, and he was willing to do whatever it took to get it.

[XiErXi]: I want to see you too

**XiErXi is requesting to talk to MrJiong on [video link]**

[MrJiong]: your servant accepts~ your servant accepts~

Said ‘servant’ was already half naked, his strong chest exposed, the low light in his narrow, spartan dorm room adding a touch of forbidden intimacy to the whole scene. The sight of him spread across Xi’s HUD, obscuring the window of their private chat, obscuring everything in the room around him.

“You look delicious,” Xi said, his voice low and rough, and for once, he just couldn’t bring himself to worry about how he looked, whether his floating cam was in the right position, whether the way he was staring at Jiong was being properly conveyed. Saliva gathered in his mouth, forcing him to swallow; his already hard cock ached. “Open that fucking mouth.”

“What, you don’t want jiongjiong to take the rest of this off?” Jiong’s voice was just a little fuzzy due to the link distortion, since he’d been too cheap to lay out much for better software or anything more than a basic cam. _What’s the point?_ he’d said, when asked. _I’d rather save that money for the times I can actually see you and touch you._ “Doesn’t Xi-er want to look at all of jiongjiong?”

“If you want to expose yourself so badly, just go ahead and do it,” Xi said, his voice trembling half from annoyance, half from excitement, his hand already stroking his own aching cock. “Just, your mouth—lick your lips, do anything—”

“Xi-er wants to use my mouth?” Clearly Jiong was not in a cooperative mood tonight; as he spoke, he smiled, and he certainly wasn’t hurrying to skin out of his trousers, his fingers unzipping and unbuttoning at a leisurely pace. “Is that all?”

“You fucking know it’s not,” Xi said, sullenly. “Fuck, I don’t know what’s fucking wrong with me this week, nothing I do to myself seems to help…”

“Oh, so you’re in heat?”

“Fuck you, what fucking heat? Sirens don’t—”

“So you’re telling me you don’t need it in your ass right now?”

“I’m… hn, I’m not…” God, there was something wrong with him, that just hearing Jiong’s poisonous voice made everything better.

“You need to get fucked, don’t you? You need to be fucked really hard.”

“Yeah…”

“So doesn’t that just mean you’re in heat? Are you really going to deny it again?”

“I…” Xi swallowed. Sometimes he hated this part of himself, the part that, with just a little teasing, became weak-limbed and eager and _weak_. “I’m in heat.”

“Good boy,” Jiong said, his voice low, his breathing just a little unsteady. Xi, focusing once more on the video, could now see that he hadn’t even bothered to do more than open his trousers and take out his cock. “Finger yourself.”

“H-how many?”

“As many as you can fucking take,” Jiong growled. “Spread yourself. Let me see it clearly, okay?”

_Just who is the supposed emperor in this relationship,_ Xi thought, grumbling internally, but of course he was already doing what he’d been told to do. Two fingers to start with, because he’d been too horny and hasty to bother to prepare before getting naked. The camera floated closer, something Xi had definitely not ordered, and it only made him more excited; Jiong didn’t often use the control Xi had given him over the camera’s operations, but whenever he did, it was always for subtle moves like this.

“More,” Jiong’s voice commanded. “I know you can take more.”

Teary-eyed, panting, Xi spread his thighs a little further, making a deliberate production of what he was about to do. He let go of his cock, reaching down to squeeze his balls and lift them just a bit, as if he wanted to make sure what he was going to do would be unmistakeable. Then he pushed his two fingers a little way in, and rubbed the third around the tender rim of his hole, probing carefully.

“Do it!”

“I’m—I’m not, I don’t have any lube there yet, I can’t—”

“Don’t let me tell you again.” Jiong never spoke like this to him in person; it was as if he couldn’t bring himself to really let loose when Xi was definitely within reach, and thus available to be hurt. “ _Do it._ ”

Xi whimpered. He trembled as he forced the third finger inside himself. _Just once,_ he found himself thinking, _I wonder what it would feel like, if he hurts me just like this…_

“You lying little slut,” Jiong was saying now, his voice unsteady, his harsh tone distorted by his panting breaths. “Look how easily you took it. I know you can take it, put in another one right now.”

“I can’t,” Xi sobbed. He was so keyed up already that even the distraction of taking it deliberately slow to tease his partner hadn’t worked. He could feel the warm drips of his own precum spilling onto his stomach. He knew he shouldn’t be rubbing his prostate, knew he should be keeping to light, shallow strokes to prolong things, but he couldn’t help himself, couldn’t stop himself from—from— “I’m going to come…”

“Then fucking do it,” Jiong snapped. “Bullshit that you aren’t in heat.”

“Sorry…”

“Did I ask for a fucking apology?”

“No, b-but—hghn—fuck—”

“Look at that,” Jiong said, his voice low and angry, yet somehow still gloating, a tantalizing counterpoint to the feverish surge of pleasure ravaging Xi from the inside out. “Look at you. Look at how fucking easy you are.”

For a long, long moment, Xi couldn’t get the breath to respond. He’d spilled come all over himself, and it was dripping and running all over, and he knew it wasn’t enough. “I s-said sorry already,” he managed to say. “I don’t know what else to do.” Which was an outright lie, from the way he was starting to work his fingers in and out of himself again; he really, really hoped Jiong was in the mood to continue watching him. “What should I…?”

Jiong’s dark, mocking chuckle sent a pleasant shiver through him. “Why ask me, when you’re already doing it?”

“Sorry, I—”

“If you can think well enough to apologize,” Jiong said, gently, “you can add another fucking finger.” Then added, after Xi let out a protesting moan: “The only apology I’ll accept is watching you come again and again tonight until you fucking die.”

Needless to say, though death was definitely not on the agenda, Xi was worn out by the time the captain declared, in a hoarse, satisfied tone, that there had been sufficient punishment visited upon him for his unforgivable sins. “What fucking sins,” Xi grumbled. “I bet you fucking recorded it so you can wank to it tomorrow.”

“Xi-er knows me so well,” Jiong said, with a direct, devilish smirk. “Jiongjiong did well tonight, right? It’ll be good for God Xi-er’s future use…?”

“Fuck off,” Xi said, flushing, and hurried to exit out of the link. He didn’t know what he was going to do when this cursed relationship was finally over; he couldn’t imagine _the_ Captain Michael Star being trusting enough to leave behind any shred of recorded material in the hands of a former lover. Xi planned to do the usual, courteous thing, a mutual exchange of all materials followed by supervised, simultaneous deletion, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t mourn the fact that he’d have to do it, have to lose such good, reliable wank fodder to the dusts of time…

* * *

A month into their not-quite-relationship, things suddenly hit a snag. First, Dom-V’s adequate but unexceptional performance in the standings took an abrupt dive, and the online storm whipped up as a result of that meant that Xi had to go without his dose of jiongjiong for two Sundays in a row.

Second, the date of Xi’s annual, over-elaborate karaoke live performance had crept up from being months in the future to being two months away and then to being three weeks away. As a result, his free time had completely evaporated; when he wasn’t baking, cooking, streaming or working, he was taking the train up to the karaoke bar he’d booked for the fateful performance to do rehearsals. None of it was anything he was being forced to do, or even anything he didn’t _want_ to do, but…

[XiErXi]: I’m going to go fucking insane

[jjcool]: *pats*~ *pats*~

[XiErXi]: OMG can you like actually empathize???

[XiErXi]: I burnt something today! I fucking burnt some shitty fucking buns!!! I can’t do this!!!!!

[jjcool]: so…… take a break?

[XiErXi]: …

**XiErXi is requesting to talk to jjcool on [link]**

[jjcool]: no can do, sweetie

**XiErXi’s [link] request has been denied.**

[jjcool]: I’m in a serious meeting rn, can you maybe call me later?

[jjcool]: or just say it here?

[XiErXi]: QAQ I can’t do this in chat, feels pathetic

[XiErXi]: wait, serious meeting? Serious as in work serious??

[jjcool]: …yup.

Suddenly, Xi’s internal maelstrom of bun-and-karaoke-related self-recrimination came to a screeching halt.

[XiErXi]: is everything ok?

He could count on one hand the amount of times Janey had ever refused to talk to him on link like this—citing work, without citing specifics. The last time she’d done this, her talent agency had been pressuring her to switch genres, and she’d ended up showing up at his place after all was said and done, smiling, victorious, but also clearly half-destroyed from stress.

[jjcool]: it’s

[jjcool]: haha, fuck. Would you believe I also can’t do this in chat?

[XiErXi]: *hugs*

[XiErXi]: call in an hour?

[jjcool]: your stream starts in thirty min though

[XiErXi]: fuck that. I’ll push it back a couple hours

[XiErXi]: these fucking buns can’t be shown anyway

[jjcool]: …

[jjcool]: save me some?

[XiErXi]: sure, no problem

Still, Xi didn’t expect that, just about an hour and a half later, while he was punching down the dough for another, entirely unnecessary batch of cinnamon buns, Janey would key in to his flat, alone.

“Are you live?” was, as usual, the first thing she asked. Followed by: “Ooh, can I have one?”

“Bottom’s burnt,” Xi said, without bothering to look. Then, after he’d decided he really didn’t want to rush ahead and try and roll these out tonight after all, and had covered the bowl and stuck it into his perpetually overloaded fridge, he turned round and saw Janey actually _finish a second bun_ , and knew that something was very wrong. “Jane—”

“Let me have this,” she said, her throaty, distinctive voice muffled by the food in her mouth. “Fuck, Xi, just. Let me.”

Alarmed, Xi walked up to where she was, edging around the kitchen island and grabbing a bun himself on the way. He was even more alarmed at the fact that Janey wasn’t crying, even though she’d scrunched down into a defeated ball in the entryway, leaning back against the free patch of wall between the coatrack and the temperature control screen. “What’s happened?”

Janey shook her head. She licked her fingers, studiously avoiding his gaze. “Don’t freak out?”

“Okay…”

“I’m, I’ve quit.”

Xi paused, drawing in a fortifying breath, very thankful that he’d swallowed his last bite before giving her the go-ahead to say anything. “Okay.”

“You can’t just say that,” Janey said, eventually, her voice low, her tone artificially calm. “I _quit_.”

“You’ve said that.”

“Fucking hell, Xi! I walked, I’m, I’m retired, I’m _nothing_ now, and you—”

“You want another bun?”

She was crying now, her silent tears failing to ruin her perfect, smear-proof makeup, her desolated gaze somehow frightening. “I quit,” she mumbled, again, as he headed for the kitchen, but when he brought back the entire pan, she immediately grabbed the one with the best spread of icing.

“Oh, come on—”

“Fuck off, I just quit, okay?” And then, moments later, she added, in a muffled, somewhat hysterical tone: “I quit, I quit, I _quit_.”

Xi, still worried, squatted down opposite her, loathe to interrupt. It took the rest of his bun and half of a new one for her to finally meet his gaze again. “So?”

She shook her head again, but there was something more resolute about it. And indeed, instead of burying herself back in her half-finished bun, she delicately set it down in the clear area of the pan, well away from the other uneaten ones. “You know I’ve been… tired, since the thing about switching genres.”

“Shit, Maxwell brought it up again?”

“No, no, it was just… fuck, it wasn’t even anything. It was nothing, just minor crap, some manager of some shit boy group whining that I’d poached an ad or something, you know?”

“Did you have to give it up? The ad?”

“No, it was just… I won, you know? I played the game, I made the usual, I had Erie make the usual hints, re me winning on merit and the shit group, or shit boy in shit group, losing because he didn’t have what it takes, etcetera.”

“Right…”

“And at the end, during the shoot, I just thought, is this it?” Her tears, which had slowed a bit earlier, burst forth again. “Wasn’t even difficult! No one was rude, no one leered, no one felt me up, but I looked around, and I just, I felt so tired.”

Xi bit his lip. This wasn’t the first time Janey had expressed her disillusionment with the system she’d clawed and practised and strived to get into, but every other time, she’d started her rant with ‘I’m taking a fucking break’, or, more often, ‘I can’t take a fucking break because…’ take one of any number of fucking reasons, and then afterwards, she’d dry her eyes and go back out and endure until she _could_ have her cherished breath of fresh air. And then Janey’d flutter off halfway through, energized by some urgent call from Erie, her longtime agent, and then there’d be a rapturous new project to lose herself into, and he wouldn’t be able to reach her for weeks on end because of it.

She’d confessed to feeling exhausted, but not like this. Not like it was terrifying, not like her tiredness was something she could no longer seem to get away from.

“I slowed down,” Janey muttered. “I tried that, but it didn’t—in the end, all I could think was, was that I just wanted to be done.”

“Okay,” Xi said, blinking back tears himself. “So it’s done.”

“Fuck,” was all she said, before covering her eyes with her wrists. “ _Fuck_.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, no it fucking isn’t, it’s—it was my dream, and I _had it_ , and now I can’t, I don’t even want to do it anymore and I—”

“Fine, it’s the end of the fucking world, but Janey, _you will be okay_.”

Janey let out a weak, protesting sob, but latched onto the slightly sticky hand he’d offered her. Her grip was tight, and he felt the occasional teardrop spatter onto his hand, but that was all right. An upset Janey that wasn’t crying was much more terrifying to him. “I don’t know, Xi. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“Well,” Xi said, with forced cheer, even as he moved to sit right by her, his arm pulling her close, “you’re always welcome on my stream.”

A weak, snorting chuckle was his reward. “Terms?”

“Oh, we’re mates, any terms you like.”

“Payment to be in…?”

“Buns.”

“Fuck off, they’re all burnt, you’re cheating me.”

“Alright, then I’ll just, it’ll just be icing. Piped straight into your mouth, any flavour—”

“Lemon swiss buttercream?”

“Well now _you’re_ cheating _me_ …”

* * *

  1. **Cough up blood:** Chinese, metaphor for venting/expressing extreme emotion or being really upset.↩

  2. **Son of Heaven:** the traditional English translation for ‘tian zi (天子)’, the sacred imperial title of the Chinese Emperor.↩

  3. **Zhen:** Chinese, generic first-person pronoun used solely by the emperor in ancient times. Comparable to the royal _we_.↩

  4. **The Dragon’s body (long ti, 龙体):** ‘long (龙)’ was a prefix for things related to the emperor, and ‘long ti’, literally ‘the Dragon’s body’, meant the emperor’s health.↩





	9. Xi: [marinating in self-induced pre-event stress]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xi’s preparations for the big karaoke live are complicated by the antics of his friends.

Three days out from the Big Karaoke Event, disaster struck.

“How the fuck,” Xi couldn’t help but hiss, “just how the ever-living _fuck_ do you catch this kind of motherfucking cold when it’s this hot outside?”

“Easy, Xi, easy,” Bertram said, “we’re all in it, you know, the pressure’s on—”

“What motherfucking pressure! It’s three songs! Three that have serious rap requirements, requirements _she_ insisted on, are you fucking saying you’ll take over her lines?!”

“No, no, I’m just saying—”

“Move,” Janey said, pushing her way into the messy circle they’d all formed around the red-faced Ursula. “Xi, you need to step out with me for a sec.”

“Step out?” Xi said, his voice cracking, his tone dark—okay, murderous, from the way Yuri was giving him the eye. “Fine, fuck, fine.” Janey, being her usual tyrannical self, had already begun dragging him off the stage and toward the storage room door. He went along with her with bad grace, still fuming, one more stimulant away from grinding his teeth for real. “Okay, okay, I’m out of line, I know.”

“You think?” Janey retorted, even as she shouldered open the slow-moving sliding door. “Ugh, do they ever air this fucking cupboard out?”

“It’s soundproofed,” Xi muttered. “That’s good.” He’d been feeling the urge to scream since they started practice, lacking Ursula but still not knowing they’d likely be lacking her on the actual day. Screaming his lungs out in a shitty soundproofed cupboard was more appropriate than screaming out in the main room, where his friends could see him and be alarmed. “What do we do? What the fuck do we do?”

“Nothing. It’s just a livestream, it’ll be fine.”

“I already paid the fucking deposit, if we can’t, if we can’t make it back…”

“I’ll cover it.”

“I can’t, I can’t ask you to—”

“Xi!” Janey’s hands gripped his shoulders, hard. “What is the actual problem here?”

Xi, breathing hard, couldn’t meet her eye. Silence settled on them, one broken only by his unsteady breaths and the faint, heavily muffled sound of the music being turned back on in the main room. “I can’t—”

“Yes, you can.”

He knew the song that was playing, just from hearing the stirring beat. Stupidly, just hearing it brought tears to his eyes, half because he knew it was one they could sing with or without Ursula, and half because it was an old standby they all knew like the back of their hands. Substituting it for one of the newer songs they’d prepared would be no problem, even if doing so meant they wouldn’t have it in their back pocket as a possible encore or raffle song, and just hearing it should have made Xi feel supported and reassured, not…

“ _Xi,_ ” Janey muttered, dragging him into her arms. “Crying over this—”

“I know,” Xi whispered, struggling to keep back the treacherous tears. “I know, it’s, it’s just, he’ll be here, he’ll see me like this, and I can’t.”

Janey’s arm tightened around his shoulders, and her free hand patted his back. “Mike’s coming?”

Xi nodded, wiping fiercely at his face. Somehow, hearing people call the captain his real name now felt wrong. “Even worse, he’s bringing friends.”

“Pro gamers?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Silence fell again, followed by an abrupt decrease in volume of the music from the main room. As if by mutual agreement, both him and Janey looked over at the door, momentarily frozen, until the music kicked back into gear again, and they could assume the problem that it had been stopped for was solved.

“I’m not even—no, fuck, I know exactly what I’m afraid of, I’m afraid they’ll all of them come in and laugh,” Xi muttered, hating himself, hating that all his hard-won confidence and shamelessness couldn’t always be endless, couldn’t always shield him from the chill of the moment of truth, when he stepped out in front of an audience he wasn’t completely familiar with. “It’s stupid, but it won’t go away, and I haven’t seen him in _weeks_ , and if this is how it happens, and it goes wrong…”

“Xi,” Janey said, pulling a little way back from him, her hand rising to cup his cheek, her expression fierce, “if it does go wrong, you always have a way out. You know that.”

Xi, hearing her dead serious tone, couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the fact that she’d bring this well-worn joke into it. Sometimes, he wished the most popular depiction of a ‘true’, full-blooded siren wasn’t that of a scheming imperial consort whose overdramatic lines were a match for her ridiculously makjang1 life story. “Right, yeah, got it.”

“No, no, you have to say it, or it doesn’t count.”

“Jane—”

“Say it! And do it properly.”

“All right, all right,” Xi muttered, shrugging off her teasing grasp. “If the worst happens, my voice’ll be the last thing they hear.”

“Oh, Xi, you didn’t even bother to—”

“Are you finally done kissing and making up?” Bertram called out, the moment Xi ducked back through the storage room door. “Though I suppose you should technically be doing all that with Ursula.”

“Ursula,” Xi said, approaching the stage, “I was out of line—”

“Too right, you were,” Bertram said, glowering in his direction. “Really, you should be kneeling, why aren’t you?”

“Shut up, you ruiner,” Ursula hissed, stepping on his foot deliberately. “You were saying, Xi?”

“I’m sorry, I know you were looking forward to singing with us too, get well soon…?”

For answer, Ursula kicked Bertram in the ankle. “See? Ruined the moment, ruined his rhythm completely.”

Which meant Xi had to try again. “Really, Ursula, and, and everyone other than Bertram—”

“Hey!”

“—I’ve been a total cock today for no reason, and I’m really sorry. It’s unfair to treat you all that way when we’re all in this together, putting in the effort, taking time off and so on.”

By now, the music had long been paused, and the formation his friends were in had completely fallen apart, half because Bertram was busy making a production of massaging his ankle, and half because Yuri was sidling right up to Ursula’s slightly drooping frame and giving her meaningful looks. When Xi finally finished his apology, he realized he had become the one surrounded in a predatory circle of friends, and had to smother the urge to take a careful step back.

“It’s nerves, then, is it?” Yuri said, her tone sympathetic, her gaze sparkling with interest. “Pressure getting to you?”

“It’s only that we haven’t done a _real_ live performance in ages, Yuri,” Janey said, her soothing tone and gentle misdirection making Xi’s tense shoulders droop a little in relief. Then she cleared her throat again, and dashed his hopes entirely: “It’s just that, you know? Live performance, live _audience_ …”

“Oh my god, he’s coming?!” Bertram straightened, immediately abandoning his pity-me-I’m-hurt play in favour of gossip. “Oh my fucking lord, that prick will go mad with jealousy, I can’t fucking wait—”

“Do you mean it, JJ?” Yuri bypassed the blank-faced, panicking Xi to clutch at Janey’s hands. “You actually confirmed…?”

“Of course,” Janey said, smirking. “Told you he’d admit it eventually.”

“Well, well,” Ursula said, her voice now suddenly much less hoarse than it previously was. “I owe you, J.”

Xi gaped. “Y-you—”

“Still have a cold, a real cold,” Ursula said, but her hasty sideways movement out of Xi’s reach confirmed his sudden, awful suspicion. “Xi, don’t.”

“Stay still!” But of course the girls conspired against him, or at least Yuri did, cleverly stalling his momentum and getting in the way of his awkward, stop-start chase of the slightly guilty-looking, exaggeratedly coughing Ursula. “Yuri, Ursula, you complete, absolute fucking—”

“Oh, you’ll call us names, but Janey gets off?”

“Oi, oi, I’m miserable, all right?” Janey said, now also retreating from Xi’s grasping hands. “I’m, I’m tragically unemployed, my career’s—tragic end—”

“ _Tragic?_ You’re having a fucking laugh at my expense, at all our expense, aren’t you?”

She was already laughing, but of course she still shook her head and did her best to swallow it back: “Xi, I would never.”

“Oh, bullshit!”

“How’s it,” Bertram gasped, through his own strangled, malicious laughter, “how’s it at _our_ expense, anyway, instead of just yours?”

“Yeah, as far as I can tell,” Yuri said, “it’s really, really just you, Xi. And I’m not, y’know, I’m just, I’m really only stating facts, here.”

Janey, at this point, was giggling nearly too hard to breathe, and Ursula was very much in the same way, only with a few more coughs mixed in. With all that snickering as a background, and Yuri’s distorted, insincere expression of concern right in front of him, the last thing Xi could bear to do at this point was try to carry off the additional announcement that MrJiong—yes, _that_ MrJiong—was his mysterious plus one, the man that his friends were eager to see at the event. Which he really truly had planned to do, once he’d got up the courage to confirm to them that Jiong was definitely going to be there.

In the end, Xi could only mutter that he was taking a motherfucking break, and slink off out of the room to see about soothing his bad mood with some snacks.

* * *

With a so-so custard tart and some slightly too sweet bubble tea under his belt, Xi found himself better able to weather the teasing and bickering of his friends. They practised late into the evening, fuelling themselves on tea and kebabs from the tiny shop across the street from the karaoke club, a situation only vaguely reminiscent of their former days as an honest-to-god, occasionally high-trending karaoke group.

For one thing, they had a bit less energy now, and far more money, and not just because the technology for the then top-notch VR suits and recording gear had naturally dwindled in price. Only Ursula had needed anything in the way of upgrades, and in her case, she’d only really needed a high-tempo skin for her already up-to-date suit, since she and her partner were die-hard VR fiends with an equipment budget twice the size of what Xi would consider to be his absolute upper limit.

In a way, despite the underlying nerves and tension that Xi couldn’t quite shake, it was a much nicer experience than any of their late night karaoke cram sessions had used to be. They could order alcohol without Ursula having to be the one to do the honours, and navigating the problem of suspicious store clerks checking and double checking that a girl that short could really be old enough to buy hard drinks. They could party all night, wasting time on tearjerking attempts at the newest ballads, spending money like water for the expanded score of any song that caught their fancy.

They didn’t do any of that, mostly because, in a hobby that would guzzle credit at light speed if you let it, the urge to squeeze the most value they could out of every purchase had never really died. And also because most of them had work tomorrow, and no time or allowance for drunken binges, but still. Just knowing they could have indulged themselves in such a binge was nice.

“Anyone who fucks up on the day of can consider themselves permanently off my extras list,” Xi muttered, as he sweltered in the slow-moving lift that was taking them back to the surface. “And I mean that, Bertram, I fucking mean it.”

“Okay, okay,” Bertram said, his voice soothing. “I’ll be perfect, we’ll all be so perfect that we’ll end up stealing him from you for the night, alright?”

“ _You,_ ” Ursula said, her voice now really quite hoarse, “if you _dare_ flirt with his boyfriend—”

“Fifty cred says he won’t,” Janey murmured, with an evil little wink in Xi’s direction. “Care to try, Yuri?”

“Wait, wait, wait, how the fuck are you confident enough to bet?” Bertram demanded, his eyes narrowing. “Well?”

“Just a feeling,” Janey said, raising her eyebrows slightly, her unconcerned expression fooling no one. “You don’t need to get so het up about it.”

Luckily, even as Bertram turned back toward Xi, the lift ground to a halt, its loud ding drowning out the start of his indignant question. “…something I don’t know? Xi?”

“Night,” Xi said, loudly, and beat a hasty retreat, making sure to temporarily block messages from Bertram in his HUD even as he hurried down the street, heading for the nearest subway station. “Christ, that’s all I need…”

* * *

Alas that said temporary block did not allow Xi to escape the fallout of Bertram’s inevitable discovery.

[jjcool]: lolol he’s still ranting!

[XiErXi]: …

[XiErXi]: seriously?? It’s been a whole fucking day

[jjcool]: well, it’s, you know, there’ve been breaks

[jjcool]: he’s also changed subject a few times

[jjcool]: first, it was “WTF is it really him”, then “is Xi blind??”

[jjcool]: then “Xi’s being deceived!”

[jjcool]: THEN it was “OMG Xi’s taste…?? It’s this???”…

[XiErXi]: [sigh]. Kill me now

[jjcool]: I’m not finished~

[jjcool]: Last couple hours have been “why did I have to find out from _you_?”, with some of “Xi doesn’t trust me huh [sad face]” mixed in

[XiErXi]: 囧

[jjcool]: *wicked laughter*

[jjcool]: can’t wait to see what Claire will say…

[XiErXi]: !!

[XiErXi]: Do not!!! Absolutely don’t!!!!!!

[jjcool]: hm…? Did someone say something…?

[XiErXi]: *desperately kneels*

[XiErXi]: spare me! Please!! Just this once…!!!

[jjcool]: ah, but

[jjcool]: my leg’s been sore these days, I’m not sure how well I’ll do during the event you know~

[jjcool]: at that time, if I make a mistake…

[XiErXi]: hahaha what’s a small mistake ah? What’s a mistake between friends?

[XiErXi]: it’s just a small event!! A small one! You can just casually dance ah!!!

[jjcool]: ah? it’s like that?

[XiErXi]: 1000% like that! 1000000%!!!!

So there was one obvious new difficulty, though it remained to be seen whether Janey was actually going to dance casually or not. And of course, at the same time, Xi was forced to deal with friendly fire from the usual source:

[MrJiong]: dying~ dying~

[XiErXi]: wtf is it now ah

[MrJiong]: there’s only 17 hours left……

[MrJiong]: [blushes] [blushes] [blushes]

[XiErXi]: [sigh]

[MrJiong]: it feels unreal…

[MrJiong]: feels like jiongjiong’s been invited to see forbidden sights ☆*:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:*☆

[XiErXi]: do you want to be _un_ invited? [smile]?

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong doesn’t think Xi-er is serious~

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong doesn’t think Xi-er can bear to do it~

[XiErXi]: …

[MrJiong]: *whispers* jiongjiong knows he’s being bad. jiongjiong is sorry, but…

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong wants to be punished in person, okay? so, for that, jiongjiong will work hard ah~ ah~

**XiErXi has temporarily blocked jiongjiong!**

“It’s all of them,” Xi found himself saying, glaring at that last, defiant message in his HUD. “Everyone I know is fucking mental.”

Somehow, that didn’t stop him answering Jiong’s call three minutes later, or wanking to the low, rough sound of Jiong’s voice. This close to what an irrational part of his brain was telling him _had_ to be their acrimonious karaoke-instigated end, Xi could not help himself; he didn’t even wait for Jiong to start talking before he unzipped himself.

He had no idea how on earth he would manage to concentrate on the day. It had been nearly six whole weeks, or five weeks and five days since the last time he’d seen Jiong in person, and perhaps it was Xi’s faint siren ancestry, or it was how gloriously attentive the captain was whenever they met up, but all in all, Xi felt feverish at the thought of being able to see his lover again. To not just see him, but feel him, touch him, _hear_ him…

“So easy tonight,” Captain Jiong said, smugly, once Xi had stopped whimpering into link. “You lovely little slut, are you crying?”

“No,” Xi lied, blinking angrily. “What… did you also just…?”

“I will soon,” was the warm, still-smug answer. “You positive you’re not crying?”

“Fuck off!”

Jiong laughed. “So you are, then,” was the last thing he said before he trailed off into low grunts and inarticulate moans. Xi licked his lips, listening intently, fancying that he’d be able to tell just when the other man actually started to come.

Not yet, not yet, not—there. His moans took on an extra urgency, his voice just a little higher than before, a little louder. “Don’t do this again until you’re in front of me,” Xi couldn’t help but say when Jiong was finally done, his voice low and tight and hungry. “You can fuck my mouth, just use me like that all night, I won’t mind.”

He would mind—didn’t he want, no, _need_ to get his ass properly fucked, after these few weeks of separation? But Xi could at least admit, if only to himself, that he wouldn’t mind catering to any and all of Jiong’s whims this time, if that was the fastest way he could get the man back into his bed.

“I’ll use you,” was Jiong’s only answer, his voice dark with promise. “I’ll make you beg me to stop.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Xi couldn’t help but mutter, in return, flushing as he did so. “Are you _trying_ to get me all spun up again?” But even as he said that, he was squeezing his soft, twitching cock, restless again despite the fact that he knew he needed to get to sleep if he didn’t want to start tomorrow off on a shaky note. “Surely you’re done by now?”

“Mostly,” Jiong said. “Are you sure I can’t see you before the big event? Just to take the edge off?”

“Good night,” Xi said, tartly, ignoring that oft-repeated question. In the mood they were both in, it wouldn’t stop at ‘taking the edge off’; it’d end in Xi missing rehearsal and showing up to perform while dishevelled and stinking of come, and that would just be massively disrespectful to everyone he’d be singing with. “Remember, it kicks off at seven sharp—”

“—and we have to be seated by quarter to seven, because that’s when you close off the room for the first half. I remember.”

“Good _night_ ,” Xi said, nettled by that all too obviously indulgent, teasing tone, and immediately ended the call, only to realize that he was back to being half hard again, frustrated in a way he knew wouldn’t go away unless he dealt with matters at hand.

Scowling, he rummaged through his archive of dirty clips, hating himself for beelining for one in particular, a so-so, fuzzy, self-recorded five-minute clip of jiongjiong sucking his cock. He refused to think about why this particular clip was his favourite, when so many others in his collection were much more crisp; he just maximized the video to fill his entire HUD and stroked himself off, his body trembling, his head full of the floaty, almost feverish sensation he’d felt while recording said clip.

Jiong had tied his wrists to the headboard with one of their shirts, and leaned on his thighs so heavily that he barely had the freedom to wriggle, and even less freedom to thrust. All Xi had been able to do was endure…

* * *

* * *

  1. **Makjang:** Korean, slang word for excessive soap-opera-esque plots and plot elements. Think heroine and her lover suddenly discovering they’re actually fraternal twins separated at birth by her evil stepfather who recovered from amnesia after trying to commit suicide because he was kicked off the board of directors by the heroine.↩





	10. The fateful day dawns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sun: [shines gloriously on event day]  
> Xi: [dives back under the covers]

When the fateful day dawned, Xi rose to meet it in a sullen, fretful mood. He’d ended up needing to vent yet again last night, after what he’d thought would be the last time, and by then, his cock was starting to be sore, and the urge to unblock Jiong and beg for him to come over in the morning was almost too much to withstand.

He still wasn’t sure why on earth he hadn’t given in. Today, despite the slight dark smudges underneath his eyes, and the fact that he kept yawning through his morning exercise routine, he could feel a certain familiar twitchiness, a slow-building surge of energy that couldn’t be denied. It wasn’t a heat—any siren or demi-siren or whatever fraction he counted as knew how to head _that_ perilous state off, and tonight Xi was going to take just the kind of action he needed to nip this building frenzy in the bud.

However, until tonight had come and gone, until he and Jiong had fucked a few rounds, he knew he was going to be irritable. Not the worst mental state to be in before any kind of public performance, but nowhere near the best, either.

[XiErXi]: anyone else catch a motherfxxing cold?

[g.o.d.]: ooh, someone’s in a bad mood, huh~

[yuririn]: baby, don’t worry, I’m healthy as a motherfuckin ox

[yuririn]: can push you down and ride you all night tonight if the great captain jiong ain’t up to it [wink]

[B-tha-D]: …

[XiErXi]: I’m not lying when I say I was gonna tell everyone

[XiErXi]: just. I wasn’t 100% sure he’d be coming tonight till recently, with all the shit going on with his team

[XiErXi]: so I kept delaying

[g.o.d.]: oh I bet he’s gonna come tonight [wink] [wink]

[XiErXi]: can you _not_???

[yuririn]: what I wanna know is how the fuck that lil shrimp can make you this shy

[yuririn]: I mean, as a fan, he’s an embarrassment to your channel, but

[B-tha-D]: _just_ an embarrassment??

[yuririn]: but Janey said he’s ok in person?

[yuririn]: so I gotta ask, heheh, Xi-baby, do you have a cruuuuuuush?? Hm?????

[B-tha-D]: !!!!

[B-tha-D]: [spits]! Why the fuck would your mind go there?

[B-tha-D]: no matter how I look at it, it’s temporary, right? Temporary fucking fulfilment???

[g.o.d.]: B, sweetie, _Xi_ gets to decide, right?

[yuririn]: yeah, and come to think of it, what happened to all your boasting about it being true fuckin love?

[yuririn]: didn’t you say the guy looked like a 100% loyal dog boyfriend?

[B-tha-D]: just because that fucker _looks_ like that, doesn’t mean he _is_ like that

Xi, nursing the remains of an omelette and his usual morning tea, couldn’t help but want to put his head in his hands. This was the legendary Bertram Effect in its full, hideous form; now, no matter how anyone argued, or what anyone said in favour of poor Captain Jiong, Bertram would find some way to refute it. To trample on the source of jiongjiong, he would even go as far as trampling on his own face, shooting down all the flattering things he’d said about Xi’s mystery man as if they had nothing to do with him.

[jjcool]: ohohoho~

[jjcool]: you’re all up this early, huh?

[B-tha-D]: …

**B-tha-D has logged off.**

[g.o.d.]: looooollll

[yuririn]: omg what did you _do_ to him JJ??

[yuririn]: what, you’re back to being B repellent now?

[jjcool]: eh? me? [innocent blink.jpg]

[XiErXi]: just how is this supposed to help…

[jjcool shoots XiErXi a playful, yet meaningful look.]

[XiErXi]: …fuck it. You know what, I’ve just, I’ve fucking had it

[XiErXi]: just tell Claire, tell whoever the fuck, who fucking cares

[jjcool]: eh? right now?

[XiErXi refuses to be blackmailed!]

[XiErXi is telling a certain someone to strike if they dare!!]

[jjcool]: ah, but, ah~

[jjcool]: I don’t wanna ruin the mood before the live~

[g.o.d.]: lel, really??

[yuririn]: [popcorn.gif]

[XiErXi]: do your worst!!

[jjcool]: don’t wanna~ don’t wanna~

There really was no winning with her, was there? If there was a straight path before her, there was a thousand percent chance that she’d walk off into the wilderness.

[XiErXi]: can you just fucking let me off?

[XiErXi]: please?

[jjcool]: hmm… I don’t know…

[yuririn]: +1 for letting him off

[yuririn]: he’s this cranky already, god knows how he’ll be just before the show

[g.o.d.]: ++1, just let him go this time, JJ

[yuririn]: asking the evil empress to let our good friend off!!

[jjcool]: lol

[g.o.d.]: [kowtows] asking the evil empress! Empress grant your favour!!!!

[jjcool]: well…

[jjcool]: alright, bengong1 will let this matter pass

Thank god for Ursula and Yuri. Way back when, he’d used to feel jealous that they could sometimes sweet-talk Janey out of her little urges for retribution when anything he said to butter her up seemed to go in one ear and out the other, but that was back then. Nowadays, he was grateful for help from any source.

[yuririn]: besides, it’ll be way more fun seeing how long it takes Swearie to figure out jiongjiong is Xi’s perfect loyal dog BF, lol

[g.o.d.]: hahaha yup

[jjcool]: huhu, bengong thinks so too~

…clearly, he spoke too soon. Cursing them all under his breath, Xi decisively changed his status to AFK and went back to the kitchen with his one dirty dish and his half-empty tea mug. Then, drinking down one last, slightly lukewarm gulp of tea, he opened up his private chat with Claire and steeled himself to face the worst.

[XiErXi]: you’re not gonna like hearing this

[XiErXi]: I’m dating your captain

[XiErXi]: or, well, he’s the guy I’ve been seeing these days

[XiErXi]: I know it’s awkward, I know he rubs you the wrong way, and I’m really sorry if my being with him makes you uncomfortable in any way

[XiErXi]: I’ll be stupid busy this afternoon with rehearsals and stuff, but I’ll still be available to chat re this till around 1 PM

Up till now, Claire was still marked as AFK as well. He wasn’t really sure what her schedule was like on Sundays, though he did have a vague idea that she might be at team practice or some other team-related activity this morning, just from listening to Jiong’s few muttered complaints about how intense post-game analysis and practice could get. That she hadn’t responded was no surprise at all.

[XiErXi]: know I should have come clean earlier

[XiErXi]: I just didn’t think it’d last this long

Seeing all that in the chat sobered him up to the point that, moments later, he found himself taking pains to delete his last two lines from the chatlog. It left a trace—Claire would undoubtedly notice—but just the thought of leaving those words up for her to see made him feel raw and vulnerable and strange.

This thing he had with Jiong—with Captain Michael Star, or Mike, which Xi had never got used to calling him—was starting to feel real. Baselessly, too, because Xi couldn’t help but remember that the first and last time the ‘boyfriend’ word had come up between them, it had been him using it, not the captain. They’d talked about a bunch of things, ranging from just how Xi had gotten so into streaming to how uncertain Jiong felt about his future at Dom-V. They’d traded small, silly stories about their parents, about growing up, about this one crazy kid they’d met at school, and laughed about how awkward or ridiculous their first times had been, but they’d never talked about all that lay beneath their light, careful conversations.

 _I want him,_ Xi thought, helplessly. _I want him to be real, want **us** to be real, but… we aren’t._ And getting them to the point where they _were_ real might be as easy as a short, light, conversation, or as difficult as when said conversation slowed to an awkward, mortifying stop.

It didn’t help that Xi had begun to get used to getting his sexual satisfaction from one very giving source. Before Jiong, his high-ish sex drive didn’t have anyone in particular to focus on, and satisfying himself had been easy, if somewhat dull. Wanks whenever he wanted them, and pub crawls or hookups with amenable friends when he wanted something more. Which, to be honest, had been less and less often once he’d somewhat recovered from those shitty two years with Cameron, not just because his willingness to trust anyone for such a narrow, but important thing had been low, but also because the trauma had made him tired.

Sex had been so fucking good with Cam, even when everything else was bad, and for a year or so afterwards, Xi had been too afraid to touch anyone else, to let anyone else make him feel that good again. Then, for a few fevered months, he’d slept around wildly, taking it wherever he could get it, angrily determined that he wouldn’t lose this particular pleasure to fear, to the fears created by a man who had _no fucking right_ to dictate what Xi did or didn’t want done to his body.

He’d slowed down eventually. Slowed down enough that he only hit the clubs and pubs once every two or three months, and didn’t find that it much affected him to do so. And now, with Jiong’s coincidental emergence, his stupid jokes and his care, Xi was feeling it again, feeling that frightening, intoxicating pull to share more, to draw someone in as close as they could get.

He didn’t know what frightened him more, the fact that he could feel like this again, or the fact that naming this feeling, exposing it to Jiong, might just mean instant rejection.

Annoyed, irritable and disturbed, Xi knew he wasn’t in the best frame of mind to talk Bertram round, but he found himself unblocking his friend anyway. _Anything for a distraction,_ he thought. _Anything to just—forget—what I want, for a bit._

In the end, he settled on maximum simplicity for his first overture:

[XiErXi]: sorry, B. I like him

Somehow, it wasn’t at all a surprise that, instead of the usual sulky five or ten-minute delay before an equally sulky answer, Bertram chose to call him and rant. “B, like I said—”

“It’s _because_ you like him!” Bertram snarled. “Why the fuck do you think I’m, why would you think I’d even be upset, if it wasn’t, if _you_ weren’t clearly on the road to drowning in his fucking jiong bucket?”

“You’re right,” Xi murmured, well used to the incoherent bent Bertram’s angry rants could take when he was truly provoked. “I should have thought of that.”

“I’m not completely fucking unreasonable,” Bertram went on, his high tone and unsteady voice making him sound entirely the opposite of what he’d just said. “It’s not like I won’t be polite, whenever he chooses to fucking crawl up and out. It’s just that, I just wish you’d told me.”

“I know.”

“He’s a crafty fucker, alright, a crafty, scheming, clever little fuck, and you just, you can’t forget that, alright?” Bertram’s voice cracked a little. “You can’t forget it.”

“I won’t,” Xi said, forcing himself to sound calm. Bertram had gone from liking Cameron well enough to introduce the two of them to hating the other man deeply enough that his relationship with Xi had taken a serious hit. They’d made up, mostly, but sometimes, like now, the old strain showed. “I promise I won’t.”

“Hmph,” was Bertram’s only response to that. Followed by: “I hear he’s bringing some gamer friends?”

“Yeah,” Xi said calmly, as if Bertram hadn’t just said ‘gamer friends’ in much the same tone as one would say ‘lepers’ or ‘rats’. “Mostly not from Claire’s team, though. Old friends, I’m thinking.” _Old friends like **we’re** old friends,_ he wanted to add, but didn’t quite dare to.

“Hmph,” Bertram said again. “Well.” From his slightly quieter tone, he’d managed to pick up the unspoken inference anyway. “I’ve an estimate due tomorrow, so I might be a bit late to final rehearsal.”

“The one for the industrial bakery?”

“No, that was last week, thank god. I’m well shot of that lot; tomorrow’s lot is um, it’s um, small-batch canning. Sauces and beans and whatnot, and somehow way more reasonable than the bakers.”

“Oh?”

There followed a short, somewhat ranty explanation about it all being a matter of expectations, and, more specifically, the humbler thoughts the canning company had about just how their web presence would look once Bertram and Ursula were done sprucing it up. “Cans aren’t sexy, and they know it,” Bertram said. “Which, as you know by now, is half the fucking battle. They’re much more rewarding to work with than some idiot convinced a livestream of the factory floor is absolutely necessary. I’d still be sweating over redesigns with that stupid bakery if we didn’t have a time limit spelled out in the contract.”

“Right, right.”

“Annnnd I’m boring you, so. See you later?”

Xi couldn’t help but laugh. “No, no I want to know everything. Can me, alright? Talk to me about sexy, sexy cans…”

Naturally, the conversation took a very silly turn after that, half notable facts (courtesy the humble can company), half Bertram’s entirely inaccurate rating of all the cans he’d seen this week, described in the dirtiest and most suggestive terms possible. When they finally ended the call, the knot of tension Xi had been nursing all week had loosened somewhat, and he set himself to the task of getting ready to head to the venue with a will.

As always, there was an inexhaustible list of things to be done. He panicked on the train for a bit, utterly convinced he’d left one of his cameras, only to run out onto the platform and find the thing squished into a corner of his backpack, underneath his tightly folded VR suit and extra change of clothes. After that, things unfolded a little more smoothly; the venue didn’t spontaneously discover they’d double-booked their room, the caterers confirmed that their party order was en route, and most of the friends and acquaintances that had said they’d be coming confirmed they would indeed be showing up.

The Forest admin covering this region tonight wasn’t someone Xi was familiar with, and didn’t seem to believe Xi’s warning that his channel might generate higher than usual traffic, even though Xi explained that J.E.M., yes, _that_ J.E.M. would be featured on stream tonight. Probably they just thought he was one of the usual raft of streamers trying to hustle their way into a featured slot on their genre’s front page, but oh well; Xi filed an official traffic advisory and attached the chat transcript with said admin just in case, and called it good.

Then… it was the moment before the Moment, and Jiong hadn’t shown up yet, but Xi was finally just enough in the groove from the snappy final rehearsal and the sheer energy of the packed performance room that he didn’t care. Or at least didn’t care so much that he couldn’t smile, couldn’t squeal and cheer and exchange jokes with old friends and acquaintances he’d not seen in months.

Claire was upset with him, but then again, he’d expected that. Her greeting had been a tight, brief hug, a scowl and a grunt, and then Mayu had stepped in to tow her away, smiling, but also clearly just a little upset by proxy.

[mayuuu]: Did you seriously have to tell her _now_???

[mayuuu]: she was looking forward to this so much!!

[XiErXi]: you’d rather I waited till the jiong showed up and pawed on me in public, then?

[mayuuu]: …

[mayuuu]: …he’s not the type to do that, right?

[XiErXi]: he’s coming with some old friends or something, so I doubt it

[mayuuu]: …

[mayuuu]: old friends? From, from Hallows?? [worried]

It seemed like Mayu had caught wind of that old scandal, whether before Claire’s truce with the captain, or just a few hours ago, when said truce was unequivocally abandoned.

[XiErXi]: you’re seriously thinking too much

[XiErXi]: in any case, most everyone’s masking up, it’s not going to be a problem

[XiErXi]: even if he does get handsy, it’s not like my fans don’t know I’m dating rn

[mayuuu]: …

[XiErXi]: WHAT???

[mayuuu]: um…

[mayuuu]: are you sure he knows to mask?

[XiErXi]: yes! Definitely!!!

[mayuuu]: cos he just came in, and I’m 100% sure he’s not masked…

Panicking, Xi kept his smile up, turning this way and that as naturally as he could, ignoring Yuri’s raised, questioning eyebrows in a bid to try and pin down the position of all the cameras in the room. A glance in the direction of the door had indeed shown Jiong’s mildly smiling, 10000% unmasked countenance, and the equally unmasked countenances of what looked very much like his old pro gamer buddies, and Xi just. He just could not fucking handle this right now.

[XiErXi]: @MrJiong MASK THE FUCK UP OMG

[MrJiong]: ??

[XiErXi]: cameras are live, stream live, omg [crying]

[MrJiong]: !!

“Xi, what the fuck’s gone wrong?” Janey said, her voice whisper quiet, her words squeezed out through a bright smile. “Do we need a cut?”

“Speech right now?” Xi replied, also through a bright smile. “I will owe you a thousand fucking times, I’m so sorry—”

Janey’s smile widened into a familiar, evil grin, and she turned around and hoisted up onto the as yet empty stage, clapping loudly, her wicked smile and presence alone making the hubbub of the room quiet down somewhat. “Oi! Yeah, all of you, means all of you, I’m kicking this off, since it’s practically already time…”

By now, Jiong and his three (or was it four?) gamer friends had hastily donned their masks and activated them, just like nearly half the other people in the room, so Xi could finally breathe easy.

“…and yeah, you’re right, Rach, I’m stealing the show as always. It’s what J.E.M. does best, retired or not retired.”

“But seriously, you’re actually done?” That was Eric, his loud, slightly suspicious drawl provoking a few giggles. “No take-backs?”

Janey sighed, her face losing its former, devilish animation, her gaze solidly trained on Eric’s smirking face. “Eric?”

“Yeeeess?”

“Fuck off.”

Xi couldn’t help but join in the sudden surge of laughter that followed that exchange. God, some things hadn’t changed, Janey was _still_ the best at bringing to life that half serious, half joking dismissal. It had been a popular, somewhat demeaning catchprase for a hot minute, so prevalent that Eric’s nickname in his old channel had been F.O.E., ‘fkofe’ for the truly old karaoke nerds. Eric, who thrived on any and all attention, simply waggled his eyebrows and raised both middle fingers back at Janey, even as the crowd around them hooted.

“All right, all right,” Ursula said, clambering onto the stage. “That’s more than enough of that.”

“There’ll never be enough fuck-off for him,” Yuri muttered, her voice deliberately loud enough to be heard as she too climbed up. “Toad.”

“I heard that!”

“Good hearing for a toad, then.”

“Fuck off yourself, you—you _cow_ —”

“Slut.”

“Bitch!”

“Ooh, did I hit a sore spot?”

“Alright, alright,” Xi said hastily, as he headed up the small set of stairs that led onto the stage. “That’s more than enough colour.”

“He started it!”

“Me? How did _I_ —”

“No, no, no, you can claw each other to death later, we’re starting now,” Xi said, raising his voice so as to drown out both Yuri and Eric’s complaints. “Bertram, stop fucking flirting and come up.”

“Oh, have a heart, Xi,” Bertram whined, even as he took smiling leave of Eric’s blushing sister. “We’re not all like you, we don’t have ready made, cute little boyfriends sitting off stage, just waiting to suck it up when we get back off…”

“Ha, ha, ha,” Xi said, striving to look amused and tolerant even while his gaze went straight to where Jiong—Mike—Jiong and company were sitting. He didn’t know whether to feel glad that Jiong was smiling as if he’d enjoyed the indirect call-out, or whether to feel stupid for being so, so pathetically worried for Jiong’s good opinion that he’d actually _check_. “Can we now get on with it?”

Janey, giggling—god knew if it was because of the stupid, swear-heavy byplay or if it was because she’d spotted Xi’s telltale distraction just then, Xi just wasn’t going to ask—sashayed to her usual spot in front, followed by Ursula and then, just a little reluctantly, by Xi. “I’m ready. Are you?”

The off-stage lights were already dimming, prompted by Yuri’s quick, smooth commands, and the excited cheers and whoops of the crowd was melding with the rising buzz of the music. Xi, caught between fear and excitement, wavered for only one short moment before giving in.

He smiled, directing it at the crowd, his gaze passing over Jiong, but not lingering. “I’m ready. Are you?”

* * *

  1. **Bengong:** Chinese, literally ‘this palace’, a third person pronoun used by empresses, Imperial concubines, and princesses when speaking to those of lower rank↩





	11. Xi: [glitters onstage]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xi’s performance goes swimmingly.

It was a hit. Not the kind they’d been able to manage when they were younger, but still there, still in that region, still fire and music and love, and the screaming, chanting crowd beyond. Xi sang his heart out, forgetting and remembering and forgetting again, his gaze sometimes passing over that knot of slightly stiff, staring pro gamers, but really not taking anything in in particular.

Four songs burned by, and Janey was right, her leg was probably not quite okay, she really was a hair slow on the complex turns and twists, but it didn’t matter. Janey was still Janey, the show stealer, the foil to Xi’s bright, powerful voice, and he wasn’t sure how he’d, how _they’d_ all got used to doing without her for so long.

When they settled into the final, crammed-together pose of their fourth song, Bertram’s eyes were glittering with what could be unshed tears, or just pure, feverish excitement. Ursula’s hand was too tight around Xi’s, and Yuri’s hand was as sweaty as it only got when she was super emotional, and Janey was starting to smile like she was going to die of joy any minute now, and it made Xi’s heart break, because she’d said, she’d _said_ she’d been able to get the same feeling from her then-new group, back when she was even in a group, but now he knew it was a lie.

Now, he knew she’d missed them just as much as they’d missed her, and for a moment, he just couldn’t stand it, so instead of peeling into the next song, he signalled the others for a break.

“Why?” Bertram demanded, twisting around a bit to try and look directly in Xi’s face, only for everyone, group and audience both, to break into laughter. “Oh, oh fuck you all, this stuff is difficult, all right, you try dancing your liver out and keeping track of when and when not to fucking talk.”

“Oh, I’m sure I could do better,” someone said, someone who definitely wasn’t Eric, and just like that, the vague shape of Xi’s agenda for the night went to the dogs. Not-Eric turned out to be Phink, whose real name Xi had long since forgotten, and whose bright gaze and rhythmic knocking of his foot against the base of the stage revealed his eagerness to be on it.

“Alright, alright, let’s take a fucking look, then,” Yuri said, eagerly, the first one to break away from the formation and go forward to half drag, half pull Phink onto the stage. “I see someone grew up all right…”

“Keep your hands to yourself, you dirty bint,” Phink retorted, slapping weakly at her when she made as if to pat him down all over. “God, Xi, help!”

Bertram merely rolled his eyes. “Show-off,” he muttered. “You think it’s the first time we’ve seen your silly fucking flirty bullshit?”

Phink, his full screenname ‘Elephink’ coming from his hideous, trademark purplish, uber-realistic elephant mask, though indeed engaged in a flirty, ‘touch me I touch you’ situation with the grinning Yuri, took the time to throw a swift, snide glance in Bertram’s direction. “So it’s B for bastard, still?”

“Yeah,” Bertram said, smiling brightly. “And ‘p’ for prick, right?”

Back in the day, Phink and Bertram had fought viciously over girls, accused each other of copying dance moves and lyric styles and song choices, and poked and prodded at each other and done virtually everything other than engage in the kind of enthusiastic hatesex that had been common between certain kinds of rivals. Though the only reason that hadn’t happened was, in Xi’s opinion, not because Phink was (mostly) as straight as a fucking pillar, but because Phink would never, ever, _ever_ give Bertram the satisfaction of having been the one to turn him gay.

Never mind the fact that, of all the people in their circle, Bertram had long been known for talking a good game with regard to his many flirtations with the same sex, but never managing to really follow up. Never mind the fact that Phink had long since been ‘turned’ or suborned in whatever way he feared that Bertram might trick out of him, or the fact that he could probably take the driving seat with Bertram in that sort of situation if he went at it in just the right way.

“I’ll show you who’s the prick,” Phink said, narrowing his eyes at Bertram. “Anyone care to help me out?”

“Me, me, me, me, me!!” Yuri was the first to betray Bertram’s trust, followed by a smirking Janey, and then a couple more daring girls from the crowd, girls whose masks Xi was only half-familiar with. Then Ursula was dragging both him and Bertram offstage, and there was nothing more to be done.

Music blared into being, a strong, sassy beat the group onstage exploited to the max, half led by Janey and by the grinning, self-satisfied Phink. They didn’t cooperate as smoothly as they probably should have—it was an old, well-known song, with an equally well-known standard routine—but they certainly had fun up there.

Xi, half annoyed at the interruption yet half resigned to it happening, just shook his head and chose to smile, glad that it at least wasn’t affecting the ratings too much. When Bertram hurried onstage to try his hand at hitting back, Xi went on with him, Eric, Ursula and Hailey, a once-rival rapper from a defunct group, and though their performance wasn’t the best, it satisfied Bertram’s competitive instincts enough that he didn’t choose to push the issue further.

Instead, what ended up happening could only be attributed to Xi’s bad luck in allowing Eric to clamber onto the stage with them: the beginning of another chapter in the never-ending argument of who was sexier onstage, men or women. Eric, god knew why, was idiot enough during their performance to crowd out Hailey by muscling his way to the front row, and wouldn’t apologize when called out on it after the song. Things escalated from there because they always bloody did, and the whole thing ended up cramming on three or four songs onto the much-revised song list.

Xi, enamoured by the chance to take the lead on one of his favourite old songs, kept a guilty eye on the ratings as the battle between the sexes raged back and forth. Thankfully, said battle fizzled out soon enough, overtaken by everyone’s sudden urge to belt through a couple large ensemble songs just because they could.

Somehow, that turned into things getting back on schedule, Xi’s old group performing their next two songs with the extravagant assistance of a rowdy bunch of karaoke diehards. Only then were they left alone, at the mercy of the now ravenous fans who competed to fill sacred pool after pool, challenges and new song tryouts mixing in freely with old, well-worn choices.

By the time the stream wrapped up, Xi was having to pace himself, and Ursula’s hoarse voice was on its last legs. Somehow, they managed to end on a high note, with a peppy rendition of a new song that had been featured in FOV’s big advertising push for the current season, something they’d picked to cheer on Claire in a moderately subtle way.

Not long afterwards, Xi would regret that last song, but at the moment he half-stepped, half-stumbled off of the stage he felt just fine. More than fine, since he was still high on the buzz of performing to an eager audience. The net of cameras floating above the stage went silent and dim; the stage itself began to sink back to the level of the rest of the room, prompted by the inputs of either Eric or Hailey, both of whom had already been waxing enthusiastic about the idea of spending the room reservation’s last few hours on partying their hearts out.

As the stream went offline, the crowd that had served as both audience and extra, unnecessary performers broke up into various clumps. Janey held forth near the hastily assembled catering carts; Phink and Yuri were catching up (flirting) near the back of the sunken stage. Ursula was busy being petted and made much of by her long-term girlfriend, Devi, so no need for Xi to butt in there, and Bertram…

Bertram was laughing in the midst of Jiong and his gamer friends, and Xi had no fucking clue how the hell that had happened. Immediately, Xi’s original plan to casually make his way over there to test the waters and get a feel for Jiong’s reaction to how tonight had gone was thrown to the dogs; fuck casual, fuck unaffected, he had to be over there _right now_ , if only to make sure that whatever Bertram was laughing so fucking merrily about wouldn’t ruin everything.

“…and _there_ he is,” Bertram said, just as Xi broke out of the nearest clump of friends-slash-well-wishers. “Right on time. Didn’t I just say he was definitely the jealous type?”

“Hi everyone,” Xi said loudly, choosing to pretend he hadn’t heard anything. “Sorry I couldn’t meet you all earlier, and—”

“Oh, my god,” someone said, in the shrill, unmistakably excited voice of a die-hard fan. “Oh my god!! Xi, hi!”

“She’s over here,” Jiong said, his tone amused. So instead of perhaps getting to walk up to him and snuggle under the weight of that familiar arm, Xi was forced to step forward and shake hands with the bright-eyed woman hovering nervously by Jiong’s side, her tall, wiry frame and slightly hunched shoulders very nearly giving Xi the impression that she was shorter than him. “This is Eddie, we used to be on the same team.”

“Oh, yeah? FOV, or Hallows?”

“Well yeah, but we go way back before that, we met playing this shit fighting game no one remembers, and oh my god, I’m really talking about it with you, I still can’t believe it!!!” That was Eddie, her voice still shaky, her hand carefully light around Xi’s, as if she was worried her admittedly large, slightly calloused hands might break his. “That was such a good live, it was amazing!”

“Oh, you’re flattering us—”

“Oh, no way, I’d never! I’ve seen GanC live, they didn’t have a tenth of the energy you guys do.”

“Now you’re really being flattering,” Bertram said, grinning at the animated Eddie. “Weren’t GanC runner up this year, at the concours?”

“Yeah, they were totally robbed,” Eddie said, nodding, and then ducked her head, as if only just realizing the implications of what she’d just said. “I mean, I mean, just, just considering the rest of the field…”

“You don’t have to slag off GanC just to give us a compliment,” Xi couldn’t help but say. “God, as far as I’m concerned, just putting us on the same level is compliment enough, we were never any more than second runner up back in the day.”

“But that’s obviously because, I mean, think of who you were up against! Drain 85, Clover, TangTrip, Sun Winding Down, Bled Velvet, SM-UNI…”

“Hailey told me the rest of SM’s going to show up in a bit,” Bertram said, sidling a step closer to Eddie. “Want to meet them?”

“Hailey? You mean—oh my god, I _knew_ that woman sounded _just like her_ , I just didn’t—the whole of SM?”

“The whole of SM,” Bertram repeated, nodding sagely. “In fact, if you just come this way with me, I see Hailey’s on her own, maybe you want to have a quick chat?”

“ _Can I?_ Oh my god. Um, Mike…?”

Jiong, smiling, waved at her already retreating form, and that was that. “So. Introductions?”

Xi couldn’t help but crack up for a moment. “Yes, yes, definitely.” And then a set of slightly stilted, but otherwise normal introductions proceeded, Xi smiling and nodding prettily as he met Celine, Hakon and Min-joon. Celine, the only other woman in the group, was the one to do the introducing, and thereafter most of the talking, though she also looked to be the youngest one of the bunch.

“…and yeah, we’re really not on Eddie’s level with this stuff,” Celine was saying, “but _I_ had fun, I think it was, it was interesting.”

“Didn’t think there’d be so many people,” Min-joon muttered, eyeing the loud, laughing influx of another group of retired or ageing idols. “Jiong said it was going to be pretty casual, but…”

“Oh, I know, it’s, the thing is, Janey’s retiring, and she hasn’t had a real send-off yet—”

“Isn’t the big do next week?” Hakon interjected. “The concert?”

“Well, yeah, but that’s for the fans, and this is more, well this and the after-concert thing next week, this is all more for Janey,” Xi explained. “Though—the concert’s not been announced yet, how’d you know there was going to be one?”

“Well that’s simple,” Jiong said, before Hakon could so much as open his mouth again. “I’m here for you, Eddie’s here for your old group—”

“And anyone else she can get her claws into,” Celine added, with an almost apologetic grin. “That’s not going to be a problem, is it?”

“I’m here for moral support,” Hakon said, hastily. “Same as Min and Cee, here to meet the new boyfriend.”

“No, he’s here for your pop-star friend,” Min-joon countered. “We could have all met for dinner or something, afterwards, but _he_ said—”

“And Eddie begged,” Hakon interjected. “Don’t forget, I just mentioned, while _she_ begged.”

“Oh come on, we were never going to miss this,” Celine said, still grinning. “I mean, you can count on one hand the amount of people Mike’s ever tried to introduce us to. And frankly, I wanted to see the show because I’d never have thought he’d be into an entertainer, so I was curious what you’d be like.”

“I’m hardly an ‘entertainer’,” Xi managed to say, around the sudden surge of joy he’d felt on hearing that meeting Jiong’s friends made him special. “I stream, sure, and I used to be trending in about the most marginal way you can imagine…”

“You’re friends with a lot of famous people, though,” Min-joon said, still craning his neck to look at the constantly opening room door. “That has to count for—what the fuck, is that DJ Wreck?”

“Oh my god, she actually made it?” Xi said, turning to double check. “Shit, I have to—sorry babe, got to run over and bow down, her being here at all is a massive favour, kiss?”

Somehow, the brief goodbye, no, see-you-in-a-bit kiss Xi had meant to accept from Jiong turned into a three-minute scorcher that left Xi dazed. “Um,” he said, flushing, because he could see Celine and Min-joon and Hakon exchanging knowing smiles, “I’ll be back, I just…”

“Hurry up,” Jiong murmured, his breath hot on Xi’s ear, which was absolutely not helpful, and yet something Xi could really bear to frown at him or pinch him for. “Go on.”

Greeting DJ Wreck, a.k.a. Sylina from the most successful incarnation of TangTrip, was something of a trial after escaping Jiong’s clutches, especially since she immediately set about teasing Xi to death while her bodyguards cased the room. “Fuck, I’ve gotta get streaming again, if that’s the kind of fish you can hook in chat,” Sylina said, draping her thin, muscled arm about Xi’s shoulders. “Michael fucking Star, huh? Who’s he with?”

“Gamers, Sy,” Xi said, hastily. “Poor, dull, boring pro-gamers.” Fuck, he’d totally forgot Jiong might be recognizable to people who moved in richer circles, especially with the stream down and everyone having ditched masks. Now, how to change the subject… “Do you need any gear?”

“Do you want the whole fucking party to dance till they drop? Fuck, I don’t need gear, vanilla sound’s good, it’ll be just like old times…”

And for two, sweaty hours, it was indeed just like old times. Music so loud you could barely hear yourself, hits and random songs and golden oldies merging into one unceasing stream, the song choices partly steered by Sylina, and partly by the common vote of those determined to dance to something that would put them in the best light, the best mood.

Xi drifted for a bit, but ended up back in Jiong’s arms, half dancing, half writhing with him to the beat. Jiong was not the best dancer, but he knew how to more or less move along to a tune, and that was more than enough, enough that the both of them could get deliciously keyed up on the dance floor.

“Come home with me,” Jiong finally said, and Xi couldn’t help but consider it, paying little to no attention to anything else as they began to struggle toward the exit of the crowded room. Could he really leave right now? He’d prepaid the room reservation _and_ the caterers, obviously, and he’d tipped the caterers when they delivered the carts, he was pretty sure that was one of the caterers back to pick the carts up, only she was merrily humping to the beat with a shit-faced Eric… “Come on, did you not just see Ursula saying she’d handle it?”

“That’s just, that doesn’t count,” Xi said, loudly. “She’s got a cold, so I can’t—”

“What?”

[XiErXi]: her girlfriend’ll probably drag her home in a bit, she’s got a cold and a sore throat and it got worse because she performed

[XiErXi]: Ursula, I mean

[MrJiong]: fuck, hotel then?

[MrJiong]: really need to do you

[XiErXi]: there’s a so-so one upstairs

[XiErXi]: hourly room, one quick round to tide us over, then a drink or two?

[XiErXi]: things here will have wound down a bit by then

[MrJiong]: ( ✧Д✧) YES!! sold!!

But they were too impatient to make it to a room, not when they emerged on the main level of the karaoke club and found a winding queue in front of the reservations kiosk, which was the only way to get an hourly room here. Annoyed, Xi started to tow them in the direction of the street exit, thinking to try one of the nearby hotels, only for Jiong to sharply steer him into the hallway that led to the bathroom on this floor. “No,” Xi protested, pulling against Jiong’s tightened grip. “No, I’d rather not, not in public.”

“They have stalls in there,” was the low, determined answer. “I checked.”

“But…” Xi slowed, but just for a moment; Jiong’s heavy hand landed on his shoulder, half shoving, half dragging him along. “I don’t want to.”

He knew, even as he said the words, that he didn’t mean them.


	12. You don’t want it?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xi and Captain Jiong make indecent use of the privacy of a bathroom stall.

Jiong only looked at him once before continuing to drag him along, his hand tightening even more around Xi’s wrist. “You don’t want it?”

They were almost at the bathroom entrance, which was presently (thankfully) deserted. Xi could feel his breaths starting to come short, could feel how hard he was already. Still, he deliberately shook his head, still trying to slow them down. Jiong’s grip was hurting him, and surely in a moment he’d realize it and loosen up, and Xi didn’t know any other way to prolong that slight, tantalizing pain without having to admit it was what he wanted.

Technically, he shouldn’t have felt so reluctant to ask to be tossed around a bit—he’d never felt ashamed of his taste for rough play. But there had always been something, some indication in Jiong’s manner, Jiong’s deliberate care whenever they were fucking, that indicated the topic a sore spot, so Xi had always refrained. But now…

“Get in,” Jiong snarled, just low enough that only Xi could hear it. “You little fucking liar.” Inside the spacious bathroom, there were two women at the sinks, and one tired-looking young man leaning by the wall opposite one of the occupied stalls. None of them looked at Xi, but Xi still flushed. “I said _get in_.”

Wordlessly, Xi complied, picking a stall as far away from the entrance as possible, feeling the back of his neck get hot with shame as he was half dragged, half pushed into it by Jiong. He knew what it had to look like, knew the way whoever was out at the sinks or waiting in the bathroom would think of him when he finally came out. _Couldn’t even wait to get a room,_ their expressions would say. _What a fucking slut._

Like that, just thinking of that, it didn’t take long for Xi to come once Jiong’s hard hands were on him, stroking his cock, teasing it through the thick material of his VR suit. It shouldn’t have been enough stimulation, not enough for him to stiffen in five strokes and drench his boxers with cum, and Jiong took clear delight in telling him so.

“Always this easy, and you dare tell me no?” Jiong’s voice was rough with eagerness and unsteady as anything, and more than loud enough to be heard by anyone in the bathroom. “Look at how hard you are again, already…”

Xi, shaking, couldn’t manage to do anything but keep thrusting into the tight grip of Jiong’s hand. When the punishing strokes slowed, he bit his lip rather than risk being overheard begging for more, only for Jiong to stop stroking entirely, and start in with simple, torturous pinches and squeezes. “Don’t…”

“Hm?”

“Don’t just… hnn…”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t tease me,” Xi sobbed, as quietly as he could. He didn’t know how well he was managing, didn’t know how long they had before someone got fed up and reported their lewd behaviour. Karaoke clubs in this area were well known for turning a blind eye to this sort of thing at night, but it was always possible to be unlucky enough to run into a stickler for the rules on the late shift. “Please let me come, please, _please_ —ugh, fuck—”

“You like that?” Jiong had finally gotten round to unzipping Xi’s suit in front, his wicked hands still squeezing and pinching more than they stroked, playing with the sticky fabric of Xi’s boxer shorts. “Turn around.”

Dazed, Xi obeyed, only to be pressed back against the stall door and fiercely kissed. He heard the tell-tale sound of Jiong unzipping himself as well, and couldn’t help but moan, anticipating what would surely come next.

Jiong, breathing heavily, did not waste another moment; he took out his cock and stepped in close, and soon they were rubbing directly against each other, their cocks trapped in Jiong’s tight, slick grip. Xi moaned again, loudly, savouring the feeling of that huge, thick cock rubbing against his own.

They didn’t often get around to doing this in bed, seeing as it was more foreplay than either of them could usually bear to delay the main thing by. Doing it here, in a bathroom stall, felt deliciously, unspeakably familiar, taking Xi right back to the days when the only way to tame the post-performance high was to drag someone off to a quiet corner and swallow as much of their come as possible.

“Slut,” Jiong hissed. “You’re going to come again, aren’t you, you greedy little thing—ngh, coming again and you haven’t even done me?”

Xi couldn’t believe he was already this close, close enough that Jiong could obviously feel it, close enough that he felt as if the next stroke would kill him. He couldn’t respond to Jiong’s low, darkly voiced complaints; he couldn’t do anything but shudder and thrust up into the tight, slick grip around him.

“You need to be punished,” Jiong said, unsteadily, his own thrusts slowing, his grip loosening around them both, only for him to switch focus to Xi, one hand squeezing and stroking Xi’s swollen cock, the other reaching down to twist at Xi’s balls. “I’m going to fuck you so hard you won’t be able to fucking walk…”

He wouldn’t. Jiong was strong enough to do it, and had the stamina to make Xi truly miserable if he wanted to, but he was always so careful, so fucking careful that Xi suddenly couldn’t stand it.

Xi didn’t want to beg out of turn. The last thing he wanted was to step out of the careful ‘no, no, yes’ rhythm they regularly played around with, not just now, just when they’d finally met up after a dry spell, and Jiong had so heavily implied that they really did have something between them, something that wasn’t just the awesome sex. Xi didn’t want to be difficult, didn’t want to touch on obvious fucking sore spots, didn’t like the thought of how it would make him look, didn’t like the thought of the awkwardness that might follow if it turned out that Jiong really couldn’t bear to hurt him even a little bit…

“Hurt me,” Xi found himself gasping anyway. If he couldn’t be shameless with this man, if he couldn’t even _ask_ —“Please, Jiong. Please hurt me.”

For a long, awful moment, there was only silence, silence and the small slick sounds Jiong’s hand made as he deliberately slowed his strokes.

“Jiong…”

“What do you want me to do?” Jiong’s voice had a low, ugly tone to it, and his other hand tightened around Xi’s balls. “You want me to hit you, is that it?”

“N-no, it’s—if you don’t want to—”

“I don’t,” was the next, almost soft response, cutting off Xi’s stammered words. “Impact play really doesn’t do it for me, to be honest. I don’t like it.”

“Oh.” Xi couldn’t help but wilt a bit, hearing that. He could feel the unspoken resignation that went along with it, as if Jiong was expecting the admission to put a rift between them, and he couldn’t really understand that. “But you do like holding me down, don’t you? Could we do that?”

“If that’ll be enough? Sure.” But the mood was already broken, even though Xi’s treacherous cock was hard as ever, and the feeling of Jiong keeping him forcibly still as he wanked him off was just as good as it had always been. “Like that?”

“Yeah,” Xi sobbed, hating himself. “I—I’m s-sorry, I, I shouldn’t’ve said—”

“Ssh,” was the low, hot whisper against his temple. “You can always ask me.” There was something unmistakably dirty about hearing Jiong say that, his tone warm with affection even as he held Xi still and brought him off with swift, brutal strokes. “That’s it. Come for me.”

Xi moaned, already losing it, arching forward into Jiong’s relentless grip. He’d totally forgot they weren’t naked, that his come might spurt all over his VR suit and Jiong’s jeans, but by the time it occurred to him to try to keep that from happening, Jiong was already doing it. His palm pressed against Xi’s sensitive, softening cock afterwards, rubbing up and down, the sensation almost painful. “Don’t—”

“You’re so dirty here now,” was the shameless answer. “Can’t jiongjiong help you clean it?” Which very naturally turned into Xi also being forced to ‘help’, mostly by licking his own come off of Jiong’s hands bit by bit, all while having his own hands pressed into filthy, glorious service. “Mmm. Xi-er’s hands are so good.”

“Hurry up,” Xi tried to snap, but his heart wasn’t in it, and he could hear how breathless he was as he said it, how greedy. They couldn’t do much more than this—he had to get back—but this was good too, it’d be enough to have Jiong soil his hands like this and force him to lick them clean afterwards. “Is it—should I—”

“Just need your mouth,” Jiong murmured. “Come here.” But he bent down, too eager to wait for Xi to do more than angle his face up, and then they were kissing wetly. Xi barely managed to focus, struggling to keep up the pace of his strokes despite the distraction of Jiong’s low, brief groans and opportunistic groping.

By the time they separated, Xi was breathless again, and starting to be just a little annoyed at the way things were turning out. “Do you _want_ to come?” he demanded, dragging Jiong’s hand away from his own cock for what had to be the fifth time. “Stop fucking distracting me.”

“Is it really distracting?” Jiong’s tone was disappointed enough that it could pass as innocent, if not for the fact that his other hand was squarely on Xi’s arse, stroking up and down right over the cleft in a horribly tantalizing way. “Jiongjiong doesn’t feel like he’s touched enough yet.”

“We _agreed_ to save all that for later,” Xi muttered. Then, when it was clear Jiong wouldn’t listen, Xi slapped away his hands, shoved him back enough that there was space to kneel before him. “Okay, now you can come back.”

“Ah, but—”

“Get over here.” Jiong didn’t really resist Xi’s sharp tug on his open jeans, didn’t do anything to stop Xi from licking up and down his exposed cock, but his sudden silence showed how conflicted he was. “Mmh.”

Just that brief, low sound was enough to break Jiong’s final shred of resistance. He canted his hips forward, thrusting eagerly, feeding Xi every inch of his thick cock, and very soon he was shuddering, unable to keep from spilling spurt after spurt into Xi’s wet, willing mouth. “You… you know you’re a fucking bully sometimes, right?”

Smirking around a twitching cock was a difficult task, so Xi settled for batting his eyelashes up at Jiong instead. And then adding, after a few minutes to clean up and struggle back to his feet: “A, serves you right; B, it’s not at all my fault you’re so fucking weak to that.”

Jiong’s response was a small, crafty smile Xi had very quickly learned to be wary of. “We’ll see,” he said, giving his cock one quick wipe before putting it away and zipping up. “We’ll see just who’s weak tonight.”

Rolling his eyes, Xi set about tidying himself up as well, keeping one eye on his ominously smiling lover and the other on what he could see of his re-zipped VR suit. “Did I miss anything?”

“No, no, you’re alright,” was the immediate answer. “For now.”

* * *

With the promise of more debauchery to come, Xi was not just distracted as he waltzed back upstairs and into the room, he was oblivious, smiling, floating with each step. He did all the things he knew he should. He warned Janey and Sylina and anyone else famous enough to need it about the fact that they’d probably need to head out the back door, since it seemed some eagle-eyed fan had realized his stream had come from an IP in Haeguk, and that some people had believed them enough to show up to scope things out. He re-packed his backpack and hefted it along. He made sure the caterers had retrieved everything.

He spent what felt like entirely too long going around glad-handing and catching up, though most of that was done in chat with the music blaring away in the background. He handed over room authority to Hailey and her merry band, and pretended not to notice Eddie entwined with Yuri and possibly also Eric in a shadowed corner behind the stage. He asked after the rest of Jiong’s friends, only to have Jiong pull him close and make it clear just how very little such a question was appreciated. “Cee and Min and Hakon are already gone,” he said, his breath hot against the side of Xi’s neck, his voice just barely audible over the thumping beat. “Ed’s a big girl, she can—she can take care of herself, can _we_ go home now?”

“But,” Xi said loudly, unsure, when it came down to it, why he was really hesitating, “should it—will we go to mine, or…?”

“I’ve a place nearby,” Jiong said. “It’s pretty empty, but it’s really close.”

“How empty is empty? I’m not fucking on the floor, that’s—”

“There’s a nice, big bed, I promise. Can we go?”

[jjcool]: omg get out of here

[jjcool]: me & yuri will close, stop fucking worrying!!

[XiErXi]: i just feel bad, idk

[jjcool]: DO NOT. GODSPEED & GET FUCKED ヽ(*⌒∇⌒*)ﾉ

Xi blushed. When Jiong gave him a questioning look, he just shrugged and began to squeeze his way back toward the door, knowing Jiong would follow him. Every action they took felt strangely magnified; each time Jiong put a steadying hand on his shoulder or stroked the back of his neck, Xi couldn’t help but shiver.

Soon, they were downstairs, then outside, then squashed together in the back of an autocab, kissing hungrily. Then they were on the doorstep of a towering block of flats, then writhing in the lift, because it was empty and dim inside, and Jiong’s place was on the fucking 30th floor and the lift was taking forever to get there.

“I really, really can’t fuck you here,” was the last thing Xi could clearly remember hearing Jiong whisper. “Too many fucking cameras.” Jiong had tortured him anyway, one hand in front and three fingers inside him all the way up to the thirtieth floor, which he promptly regretted once they finally staggered out of the lift and down the hallway and came upon the door to his flat, which sported an old-fashioned keypad lock.

Jiong had to call building management and be very serious and sober as he verified his identity, all after frowning as he tried five different combinations with his (mostly) cleaner hand.

“Serves you right,” Xi said, grinning as he watched Jiong shouldering open the door so he didn’t have to touch it with his hands. And then, very shortly after, he couldn’t say anything at all.

He’d known, somewhere in the back of his mind, that provoking Jiong the way he’d done just now would result in his suffering, but he found that knowing was different than experiencing it. Jiong’s disinterest in impact play and grudging acquiescence to the idea of restraining Xi now and then had somehow translated in Xi’s muddled mind into the thought that Jiong wasn’t much for any kind of BDSM; over the next two hours, he soon found just how much of a misconception that was.

The fact that Jiong wouldn’t outright hit Xi didn’t mean he didn’t have any way to make Xi suffer. Tonight’s punishment was desperation; he brought Xi to the edge of coming over and over and over again, disdaining Xi’s tears, Xi’s plaintive cries, Xi’s furious demands for relief. He came in Xi’s mouth and kept Xi on the edge even as Xi greedily swallowed everything he was given. He came on the sheet, inches away from Xi’s teary face, and then fingered Xi’s tight, slick channel, laughing as he listened to Xi begging to be allowed to lick up his come.

He held Xi down and fucked Xi’s aching arse, pounding in in just the right spot, and then stopping. Fucking in and out in slow thrusts that made Xi’s toes curl. By the time Jiong was satisfied that Xi had been punished enough, Xi was entirely limp beneath him, groaning hoarsely as the orgasm hit.

Xi felt every one of those last few strokes. Jiong’s weight and his wickedly tight grip kept him pinned to the bed, unable to move, unable to do anything other than accept the cock filling him up, pounding in just out of time with the cruel hand squeezing and stroking his aching cock. Coming like that, feeling the sticky warmth of his own come dampening the sheets against his sensitized skin, it was just too good. “Don’t, oh, don’t,” he heard himself saying. “Fuck, I can’t, fuck, _please_ …”

Jiong was fucking into him harder now, and he couldn’t bear it. He didn’t want to bear it, or he did want it, it hurt so much, so sweetly, and he was going to come again like the slut he was, but it was alright, he was allowed to do that now. “Here you are,” Jiong growled. “You needed another load in your arse, right?”

“Yes,” Xi sobbed. “I—oh, oh god—”

Afterwards, it was far too difficult to move. Embarrassed, Xi laid there and let Jiong carefully clean him up, taking the usual liberties along the way. He spread Xi’s thighs wide and slipped his fingers deep into Xi’s arse even as he wiped the come off Xi’s cock and groin and belly. Xi let out a broken whimper when he felt Jiong seek out his prostate again, rubbing firmly. “I can’t,” he gasped. “You—you fucker—”

“Want to bet that I can make you come one last time?”

Xi, already able to feel his stupid, shameless cock twitching again, firmly refused to take that losing bet. Naturally, said wordless refusal didn’t stop the slow, deliberate invasion of his slick, aching hole. Jiong smirked, tossing aside the towel, and bent in over him with a will, and Xi surrendered, widening his trembling thighs just a bit, eager to be taken advantage of once more.


	13. The morning after

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xi and Jiong unwind after their hectic night.

Waking up was a bitch and a half. Xi ached all over, and felt mildly dehydrated and very, very sore. For one long, disorienting moment, he didn’t know how on earth he’d managed to escape being hungover after what must have been an epic night out.

Then, rolling over a bit, he caught sight of the broad, bare back of the man sitting up on his right, and his muddled brain finally caught up. _Jiong,_ he thought, and couldn’t help but smile, and do his sluggish best to get closer to him.

He remembered now. Last night, they’d skipped drinking in favour of sex, sex and more sex. “Hug?” Xi asked, already slinging an arm around Jiong’s waist. Getting up felt entirely out of the question, but this would do. “You’re a beast, you know that, yeah? I can barely move.”

“Xi, there’s—”

“No.  _Hug_.” It took a minute for Jiong to respond, to turn around and lie down and snuggle right up to him, his arm tight around Xi’s shoulders, his bare chest a comforting warmth for Xi to lean his head against. “Mmm.”

Jiong’s other hand stroked through Xi’s hair, tangling in his short, disordered curls. “Can we talk?”

“Mrh.”

“Are you actually awake?”

“Can be.”

“Xi, I’m—Xi?”

“M’listening,” Xi mumbled, pushing a little way back so as to get away from the tempting warmth of Jiong’s chest. “Say it, say what’s happened.”

“Your stream VODs from last night are trending.”

“Oh, yeah.” Xi made a limp wave with his hand. “That’s just, y’know. Perils of Janey.”

“But, remember earlier? When I came in unmasked?”

“S’fine, it’s—um—her manager, I mean, her company makes it… no. I mean, they’re bloody draconian, they add this shitty layer of auto-masking whenever she does a non-professional stream. They’ll have done that, you’ll have a nice blue blob for a face in it, it’s fine, that stuff is a bitch to strip off cleanly.”

“Then why, what was with all the panic back then?”

“People make their own VODs,” Xi muttered, letting his head fall back onto Jiong’s chest. “Stream, no _screen_ capture shit. It’s not super common, but. Thought it best to be safe.”

“Oh.” That was nice, this was always nice, Xi being pressed close enough to Jiong to hear his voice rumble in his chest. “You say it’s not common?”

“Mmm, yeah. Pricey.”

“The software? I thought most HUDs came with that for free.”

“No, I mean, storage adds up. We used to screen-cap too, when we couldn’t stretch to proper cameras. The edits, the extra perspectives, the times you want someone else’s vid and they dump like a week’s worth of auto-record on you, it all adds up. Half our sponsorship money went on that, it’s no fucking joke.”

“Right, right, I get it.”

“Not even sure if you showed up at all on camera, honestly,” Xi mumbled. “Fixed field of view was on the room, not the room entrance. I can check that now, if you want me to.”

“No, I think I’ve tortured you enough, keeping you up when you’d clearly rather be dead to the world.” Though Xi couldn’t see Jiong’s face right now, he’d bet any amount that the bastard was smirking. “Go back to sleep; I’ll wake you for breakfast.”

“Mmh. I’ll check, alright?”

“Yeah,” Jiong said, shifting slightly out from under him, then bending down to press a kiss to Xi’s scrunched up forehead. “I’ll remind you.”

* * *

Hours later, Xi was reluctantly sat up in bed, half his attention on the projected screen in front of him, and the other half on the noodles he was slurping up from the take-out container in his hands. Fuck, he loved nothing more than good hand-pulled noodles he’d neither had to make himself, or beg and cajole Gran into making. The sauce and the beef were only just okay, but the noodles themselves had a fantastic consistency.

“Hmm.”

“Anything?” Jiong called out, from the bathroom, that one, eager word made nigh unintelligible by the way he was gargling. Then he coughed and spat, and poked his head out the bathroom door. “Are you even looking?”

“Mmm. Looking.” Which he _was_ doing, if also at the same time as he chatted with the restaurant the take-out order was from, inquiring if they did fresh noodle delivery. “Nothing yet.”

“Are you sure?” Jiong ducked back into the bathroom for a moment, then came striding out, the towel around his waist doing so little to cover him up that it might as well not have been there at all. “Min and Hakon are freaking out a bit, I just want something to tell them.”

Xi, slurping up his last mouthful of noodles, couldn’t help but feel a bit confused. “Aren’t they all your old teammates or whatnot? This isn’t much worse than what they’ve had to deal with before, surely.”

“It’s not that, it’s, it’s just…” Jiong came up and sat down beside Xi in front of the projected screen. “What, you planning on some kind of noodle feast for your next stream?”

“No, it’s my older mum’s birthday in a bit, and she loves them,” Xi muttered, hurrying to minimize that window. “I hate making them, my other mum’s banned from the kitchen, and Gran would seize the chance to blackmail me into going to marriage meetings if I asked her to help me out. You were saying?”

“Marriage meetings?” Jiong said, his low, aggrieved tone entirely at odds with the suggestive way he was stroking his hand down Xi’s bare back. “Isn’t jiongjiong enough for you right now?”

“You can stop that,” Xi said, turning his gaze pointedly away from Jiong’s powerful thighs, and the mouthwatering sight the hem of that small, slightly damp towel made against them as he shifted in place. “I’m far too sore to be fucked, and remember, I’m doing you and your friends a favour you don’t fucking deserve after I _told_ you—stop it!”

“Huh? You’re already hard?”

“Do you want me to finish taking a look at this shitty VOD search or not?” Xi hated the way his voice cracked midway through that snappish sentence, hated the fact that he was so tired and horny that he couldn’t effectively wriggle out of Jiong’s grip. “I’m not letting you in me again, so stop.”

“Jiongjiong doesn’t need to be inside Xi-er,” was the low, provoking answer. “Jiongjiong just wants to drink Xi-er’s milk.”

“No you fucking don’t,” Xi said, peeling his lover’s insistent hand out from between his thighs. “I’m the only one that drinks any fucking ‘milk’ in this fucking—”

“But you like hearing it, right?” Jiong bent in sinfully close, sucking the tip of Xi’s suddenly all-too-sensitive earlobe into his mouth. “Right? Xi-er likes hearing jiongjiong’s filthy words?”

“You—nnh—let me fucking finish this? Please?”

Jiong chuckled, and the brief glimpse Xi had of his slight, wicked smile as he pulled away made Xi horribly certain he was going to take the obvious opportunity to earnestly promise to let Xi ‘finish’ very well. However, instead, all Jiong did was lean back and smile over at him.

“Fucker,” Xi couldn’t help but mutter, even as he turned his hazy attention back to the screen before them. “Shit, where was I… right. Okay.”

Understandably, with the eager presence of Jiong serving as a distraction, Xi didn’t end up digging much beyond the third page of results for Janey’s trending secret~ karaoke party. Jiong crept closer and closer without quite touching him, and just having him there, warm and very slightly damp from his shower, his cock an obvious half-hard lump beneath the towel, was a greater weight on Xi’s mind than the search results he was scrolling through.

“Anything?” Jiong finally said, his breath hot on Xi’s bare shoulder.

“Fuck. Off.”

“Have you checked the stream VOD yet?” Naturally he would pick a sensible question right as his filthy, glorious, wicked hands landed on Xi’s thighs!! “Can you open that for me?”

Xi barely managed to navigate to the right file and folder for the VOD of last night’s stream. And then he forced himself to pay attention as the quick, primitive face-matching search ran, because even a partial hit really _could_ spell trouble when the journos and hacks eventually, inevitably got their hands on the raw VOD. Luckily, the only hit that came up was a brief, fuzzy, 3-second shot of the side of Jiong’s face as he turned back towards his friends, who weren’t really in the shot either.

“Okay, that looks liveable,” Xi murmured. “You’re just there, on cam, not doing anything crazy. The after-party’s another thing, obviously, but all cam frequencies were banned, and the lighting was all that anti-screen-cap stuff. We’re—ngh—I think we’re alright.”

“Can I do it now? Can I suck you?”

“Y-yeah, fine, fuck…”

* * *

After _that_ —which added on a solid, tortuous half-hour before Jiong’s eventual departure back to team digs—Xi felt he could finally relax. He peeked out of the tall, clear living room windows, marvelling at the semi-decent view. He stuffed last night’s soiled sheets into the washer, remade Jiong’s deliciously wide bed, and then lolled around in it for an hour or two, leisurely catching up on work.

Then, long after noon had come and gone, Xi dragged himself over to the sadly small, spartan kitchen to see if anything could be done with what was on offer. By then, he was streaming again, privately, to the ad-hoc group of k-streamers and hangers-on that had swung by to Janey’s impromptu send-off last night.

> XiXi: ah, there’s practically nothing [tears]

> XiXi: this guy wants to starve me to death ah

> erich: what fucking starve

> erich: order in, or get out!!

> janeuwyn: hehe, aren’t you just dying of jealousy ah?

> yuri: lol for real, whole time we were buttering up jiong’s friend, this motherfucker was all like, so, so have you met any of the other Stars???

> erich: hey!!! didn’t you fuckin say no kiss and tell?

> yuri: did I say anything about his friend??

> yuri: hmm? [innocent blink]

> erich: …QAQ

> erich: you wanted to know too!!

> ursurule: so, eric, on a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is it that you’d bend if jiongjiong called your name, hmm~

> erich: 1!! obviously !!!!!

> janeuwyn: ah, ah, but doesn’t that mean you’d bend him for yourself instead, mr. gong~?

> erich: you…

> [erich rains curses down on janeuwyn’s ancestors, to the fifth generation!]

> janeuwyn: muah, muah, it seems i’m still loved…

“Well,” Xi said, sighing exaggeratedly, “I guess I’ll just keep him to myself, then. Ooh, eggs…”

> hail: does this guy even have a fckin frying pan lol

> ursurule: bet he does, but there’s no spatula, no cooking utensils, nothing

> janeuwyn: 99% likely it’s the tools that are missing

> yuri: 100% bet on the missing pan ah

> itsB: joke’s on you JJ, I saw a bunch of tools in a dusty cup while Xi was swanning through

> yuri: haHA!

> [yuri bursts into a victory dance]

Yuri, unsatisfied with just the emote, went as far as opening up her own substream and forcefully voting it into visibility with her usual fleet of bots, so as Xi set a half-dozen eggs to boiling in a saucepan, he was accompanied by the sight of Yuri dancing in what looked like the working half of a hotel room to Eric’s high-tempo singing.

> janeuwyn: wow, you and eric really treated that girl right

> janeuwyn: isn’t that hotel sha-sha?

> [erich is smugly determined to maintain his pure silence!]

> phink: right in one, J

> janeuwyn: ohhhhh??

> phink: B and I got the room across from them

> itsB: HEY!!! YOU FUCK!!!

> yuri: o_O!

> erich: waoooooooo

> hail: OwO

> ursurule: O_O!!

> janeuwyn: ━(((;ﾟДﾟ)))━!!!

> janeuwyn: [happy tears] congratulations! It finally came!!

> itsB: phink, you fuck!

> itsB: who the fuck is in fucking hotel sha-sha with you, ok??

> itsB: look!! My room door! [room-door.jpg]

> itsB: look, outside! And I’m in it!!! [room-door-out-and-me.jpg]

> janeuwyn: …oh [deflates]

> hail: aiyyaaa… my happy dream…

> phink: haha

> itsB: what dream, what fucking, you guys all have the most bullsh$$ imaginations

> itsB: talk to you later Xi, I’m out

> [itsB has shaken their sleeves and left the chat]

> XiXi: awww, you guys scared him off

> phink: yeah, couldn’t you have been more sensitive?

> phink: man, now that the fun’s gone… I think I’ll head out too…

> yuri: oi, oi, where do you think you’re going

> yuri: aren’t we fucking comparing pulls rn? Huh??

> [phink has shaken their sleeves and left the chat]

> ursurule: …hey

> ursurule: is it just me, or was that kinda… suspicious?

> janeuwyn: man, I wish you weren’t thinking too much, but

> hail: lol we wish it happened… Orz

> erich: imagine how much shame we could heap on them both lolol

> devi: hey guys~!

> devi: i’d ask who pulled hardest last night, but, hahahaha, it’s obviously me, so

> erich: [barf]

> devi: who pulled _second_ hardest, hm?

> [devi is winking at ursurule]

> yuri: isn’t this amount of dog food1 a goddamn crime ah??

> hail: single dogs only, ok!!!!

> erich: right, right, fuck off with that lovey dovey crap

> yuri: if you’re here, you’re here as a single dog ah!!

> ursurule: ah? then what about Xi?

> yuri: come on, he’s boiling eggs to eat with some shitty rice!

> hail: yeah lol his big bad BF left him alone to starve…

> XiXi: yet somehow I will live [tear]

> [XiXi is thinking fondly of eating while enjoying the view from Captain Michael Star’s expensive fucking flat]

> devi: heheheh you’re gonna show us the view right?

> erich: [bites thumb] you!!! you traitor!!!!

> XiXi: no time to chat~

> XiXi: eggs done~ rice done~

> ursurule: ah, the jiongjiong~ it’s strong here at the source ah~

> erich: [shudders] why… the tildes…

> yuri: don’t ask, man. Just don’t fucking ask.

Grinning, Xi did as had been requested, and ferried his somewhat humble meal of rice, tender hard-boiled eggs and generous drizzles of soy sauce and pepper to the small, yet spacious-feeling living room. The pleasant, sun-drenched view of downtown Haeguk and a tiny slice of the elevated river seemed even more luxurious with his friends’ exaggerated weeping and despair in chat, especially once he started in on his food, and could also enjoy Yuri’s angry ruminations about how rice was a cursed grain.

> yuri: like black fucking magic

> yuri: don’t know how many times i’ve changed fucking pots

> ursurule: why not just use a cooker?

> janeuwyn: why even ask, ah, don’t you know our yuyu?

> janeuwyn: still dreaming she can pull some rich fuck by cooking from scratch

> yuri: how the fuck would it be that, ah?

> yuri: omg I tell a joke ONE FUCKING TIME

> janeuwyn: now now~

> janeuwyn: every girl has her secret dream~

> erich: ah, yuyu, it’s ok to dream ah~

> yuri: hahahaha… aren’t you also fxcking dreaming??

> erich: isn’t it different for a boy though? OwO?

> hail: just how the fuck would it be different lol

> hail: doesn’t it always boil down to this??

> hail: “[tender look] eric, my honey. Come here and let this jiejie raise you ah”

> erich: exCUSE me, I wanna be raised by a hot older woman??

> erich: no shrimp gals my age allowed~~

> yuri: hahaha… then die!!!

> **yuri has struck down erich with fire! One mark of fire is disfiguring erich’s heart tree!**

> **yuri has struck down erich with fire! Two marks of fire are disfiguring erich’s heart tree!**

> **yuri has struck down erich with fire! Three marks of fire are disfiguring erich’s heart tree!**

> **erich’s heart tree falls to the ground and shatters into dust! erich has been silenced from the chat for the period of:** thirty minutes

> hail: lololol we’re eric free now

> ursurule: how the fuck do you keep getting mod, yuri

> ursurule: don’t we do a rotating vote?

> XiXi: who knows

> janeuwyn: according to log, phink had it last

> yuri: heheheh I bought it from him this time

> yuri: if eric whispers you, just tell him it’ll cost 5000 crystal to buy back in

> yuri: MINIMUM.

> janeuwyn: ohoho, I smell revenge~

> devi: tell, tell, tell! did he hog your girl too much?

> [yuri is declaring that her lips are sealed!]

> ursurule: yup, as expected, it’s that

More gossip flowed. Other old friends logged in briefly to either boast, exchange anecdotes, or diss each other’s performances from last night. It was all just like old times, except without the low-level stress of worrying about homework or college papers or lectures or grades. There were other worries, of course—people musing about where to move next, or angsting over a missed promotion at work, or putting out feelers in a way that indicated their current relationship was on a downslope.

Then, just as Xi was ambling back to the kitchen to start cleaning up, Sylina unexpectedly logged into the stream chat, only to meet everyone’s happy greetings with a bombshell:

> hail: sy! my baby!!

> janeuwyn: !! what brings you here?

> erich: aren’t you still on tour???

> sylina: janeuwyn, fans have gone fucking nuts

> janeuwyn: ?

> sylina: my agent sent you and erie a chat link, hurry up an join

> hail: hey, wait, what’s going on?

Xi’s heart sank. If Janey was getting pulled onto an emergency chat with Sylina’s people, something had gone very, very wrong…

Hurriedly, Xi set down the dirty dish in Mike’s otherwise pristine sink, then quickly pulled up his default search on Janey’s stage name. Initially, he couldn’t tell what he’d missed, and it was only when he started drilling down into the comments on the highest-ranked video—a clip from last night, one of Janey singing her heart out onstage—that he found it.

The first four or five highest liked comments were the usual ‘omg, J.E.M. forever, sob sob’ type comments he’d been expecting. The seventh comment was a different story, one that had been posted at something like the crack of dawn this morning:

>>> jem4eva: **guess who i found…???**

>>> Huuuge harvest came to watch our family’s J.E.M., ( ✧Д✧) OMG!! Stills are attached~

>>> [DJ Wreck.jpg]

>>> [SM-UNI’s bingbling.jpg]

>>> [elephink.jpg]

>>> [SM-UNI’s hailey.jpg]

>>> [three boys’ eric.jpg]

“Hahaha, fuck,” Xi said, shaking his head. “Hailey’s never going to let him forget that…”

The stills went on and on, listing mostly k-streamers and pop stars in their often well-known, iconic masks, along with the occasional notable hanger-on—Devi, for example, earned a mention because the Patels used to own a scarily large chunk of property in Haeguk, including the iconic Daehu Karaoke Club that launched five different mega-famous acts. And of course there were pictures of ‘J.E.M.’s old crew’, i.e. Xi, B, Ursula and Yuri, all in mostly flattering poses.

The moment Xi’s blood pressure skyrocketed was the moment he saw the following header, and its requisite picture:

>>> all-knowing-jemaunt: **J.E.M. harvesting from new fields~**

>>> All you baby fans crying out to know why that last song got sung, heheh, let this great aunt teach you well~

>>> An ad song for FOV naturally means FOV stars can be found:

>>> [FOV’s e.d.i.e., top ADC this season.jpg]

“Ohhhh fuck.” Sure, the picture of Eddie was fairly blurry, an awkward, distorted three-quarter shot that looked a bit like it might be a lucky reflection, but it was pasted next to a full, unmasked picture of her smiling, and had an 85% FaceMatch score pinned below, clearly the result of having been run on both images.

If this crazy fucker had gone as far as running FaceMatch on even random one-off stills from the crowd, there was no fucking way they’d have ended up missing Jiong. And, indeed, just two pictures below:

>>> [FOV’s starmike, top tank four years running.jpg]

Xi put his face in his hands. “Shit.”

* * *

  1. **dog food (狗糧):** online or offline displays of affection provided by couples that ‘single dogs’ (self-deprecating nickname for single people) are forced to watch↩





	14. It has been 252 days since you Pressed 2 Release!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xi deals with the fallout from the fans’ discovery that Jiong was at his event.

[XiErXi]: @MrJiong you need to let your team PR know

[XiErXi]: jj’s wild-ass fans data mined you out somehow

[XiErXi]: let me know if your guys need any help from me or jj, ok?

[MrJiong]: [away message:] Xi-er~ wait for my reply~~

That was as much as Xi could do right now, considering the fact that Jiong was likely knee deep in team practice, or maybe even closeted away and being shouted at by team PR if they were super on the ball. Sighing, Xi minimized that chat window and opened up his old, hoary copy of Press-2-Release. “I wonder how long it’s been since I needed this piece of crap…”

[Welcome back, XiXi!]

[It has been 252 days since you **_Pressed 2 Release_**!]

“Well, now I know.”

[Would you like to use a **Template** , or start a **New Release** from scratch?]

Sighing again, Xi decided to check out his old template. Funnily enough, not much needed to be updated, even though the last incident that had prompted the need for anything like this couldn’t be more different. That time last year—252 days ago, as the stupid software reminded him—Janey had called into Xi’s chaotic birthday stream to sing him a somewhat drunken Happy Birthday. Unfortunately, she’d called in and sung as ‘Nameless God’ by mistake, which none of her hardcore fans could possibly have forgotten was the old ID she had used as part of XYBU, and so two days of feverish speculation had begun.

J.E.M. was an alcoholic. J.E.M. missed her old karaoke group so desperately that she was about to commit suicide. The press had lied to the fans for 8 years straight, and J.E.M. and Xi had been an item all along!! No, no, it was even worse, the press hadn’t lied, Xi hadn’t lied, but J.E.M., the poor girl, had been strung along for 8 years, pining for her gay best friend and never being able to reach his heart, ah, such a tragedy ah…

The theories only got more ridiculous from there. Xi had had to lock down his stream to prevent a flood of new, furious, motivated subscribers shitting things up for everyone else, and he’d had to issue a statement about how he and Janey and the rest of the group were still close friends, look, here’s some fucking proof. Thankfully, they all had a few innocuous clips of public well-wishes to cram in, as well as a somewhat silly video of Xi and the group doing a brief, dumb little routine to celebrate Janey’s 5-year anniversary at her company.

God only knew what this round of ritual public sacrifice would require to sate it. Xi, watching the likes for the image-laden comment continue to rack up—and watching as more amateur sleuths contributed data mined pics—couldn’t help but feel tired.

_Looks like Jiong wasn’t being too paranoid after all,_ he thought, bitterly, remembering the brief exchange they’d had about whether or not to keep the privacy shades up on all the windows in here. Xi had been leaning towards shrugging it off, but Jiong had leant very much the other way. _You never know,_ he’d said, very seriously. _Inside the building’s one thing, access is fairly well limited, but outside?_

[XiErXi]: @MrJiong I’ve got a basic statement slapped together

[XiErXi]: [press release.doc]

[XiErXi]: let me know if that passes muster

[XiErXi]: also probably gonna head home in a min, call me at any time, I’m good to chat if you need to rant, ok?

[MrJiong]: wait!!!

[MrJiong]: don’t leave yet!!!!

[XiErXi]: o_O? Okay?

[MrJiong]: those quick click fucks have our picture somehow [quickclicks.com]

In just one glance at the front page of that website, Xi understood why Jiong had warned him; the picture underneath their main, lurid headline for today was a shadowed, somewhat blurry shot of him and the captain kissing at the door to his flat.

Worse, that wasn’t a shot from last night, but one from this morning, with Xi’s only attire a skimpy terrycloth bathrobe that just barely hit him at mid-thigh, and had been half-off his bare left shoulder, revealing two livid love bites from the night before. It was immediately obvious what had happened between them that night; the picture could have served as its own headline.

Naturally, Quick Clicks had not stinted at all with said headline, or indeed, with any of the subheadings. _STARMIKE’S NEW SIREN SLUT_. _Picking Up a Pervy Old Pattern?_ _Standards Slipping?_

[MrJiong]: are you alright?

[XiErXi]: haha, yeah

[XiErXi]: I’ve seen worse

That was Xi’s first, and hopefully last, sneaky little misstatement of the day. He _had_ seen worse; it just hadn’t been directed so squarely at him, at least not in quite this manner.

There was a portion of Janey’s fans who refused to believe that there wasn’t, and had never been anything between Xi and Janey; said portion was equally split between either treating him like a low, spineless deceiver, too cowardly to stand up and take the heat he’d get as Janey’s publicly acknowledged spouse, or like a fickle, heartless bitch too enamoured with Janey’s devotion to make it clear that she’d never be the first in his heart. Xi’s documented public relationships with various men were either just a long, elaborate sham, or evidence of his disgusting infidelity to their idol.

He’d been called both a shapeless, corpulent blob too heartless and mercenary to cut poor Janey loose, and a shapeless, corpulent blob too cowardly to step into the light and reward Janey’s undeserved love for him. Last year, when both views of him had been at an all-time high, he’d joked to his friends that he really couldn’t decide which of them was more unflattering; both camps had tried so very, very hard to promote theirs as the worst.

Now, with the spirited entrance of a new, strong contender playing out before his eyes, Xi couldn’t help but think, with a sinking feeling, that this newest iteration of his public image was going to be a little tough to deal with.

It really, really, _really_ didn’t help that Quick Clicks had been so uncharitable as to post a sloppy image of Xi cooking in his ratty singlet on stream alongside glamour pics of the various fresh-faced 16- and 17-year old twinks Jiong had been connected with in the past.

[MrJiong]: you know I love how you look, right??

[XiErXi]: lol, I’d worry about you if you didn’t

[XiErXi]: no call to be so dedicated about licking this fat ass open if you didn’t really want to plug it up, right?

[MrJiong]: [blushes]

[XiErXi]: …

[XiErXi]: you know, I think that might have been the first time you blushed for a sensible reason

[XiErXi]: fuck, this feels so wrong QAQ

[MrJiong]: [hugs]

[MrJiong]: anyway, it’s definitely gonna be me getting done up next

[MrJiong]: no way they don’t link @starmike with @MrJiong, it’s so easy if you go by who bought buns

[MrJiong]: iirc, you shipped mine to the club mailbox >.<

[XiErXi]: omg yeah

[XiErXi]: could this be the end of jiongjiong disease???

[MrJiong]: never~ never~

Meanwhile, in the suddenly far too lively karaoke old-timers’ stream that Xi had half forgotten:

> yuri: omg @XiXi!!! those pics!!!!!

> erich: dunno whether to feel sorry or not

> erich: i mean, you can see from the bruises, this Star guy’s got some heavy fucking tastes

> phink: omg you pansy, aren’t those just love bites?

> erich: eh, but, shouldn’t our Xi have been on top???

> hail: yeah, star-nim’s tall, but he looks weak

> hail: easy to push down

> yuri: esp when you feast your eyes on how he used to look [cute young starmike.jpg]

> phink: lolol wtf

> itsB: wow!! reporting the usage of excessive growth hormones!!!!

> hail: report +1

> erich: yup, 99% uke looks

> yuri: so @XiXi, we gotta ask, just how long have you been skipping leg day huh?

> XiXi: fuck you all, lol

> XiXi: don’t you all know by now that laozi doesn’t do sweaty work??

> hail: lolol preach

> XiXi: i mean, what’s a big man like that for if I can’t fucking ride him?

[MrJiong]: everything okay? You just went quiet…

[XiErXi]: lol it’s fine, roasting this shit with my friends rn

[MrJiong]: as long as you’re all right [hugs]

Xi, five parts all right and four parts panicking, couldn’t help but feel a strong, sudden urge to fly over to the DOM-V team house and barge in so he could have one real, long, crushing hug. That was the most obvious way Jiong’s soldier-bred strength had always been apparent; he squeezed just a little too hard whenever they had to part. Xi thought of how he’d rolled his eyes and mocked Jiong for that this morning, even as he did his best to squeeze back.

_“We’ll see each other tonight,”_ Xi had whispered, because that had been the plan from the start. They’d never quite settled on where, or on what they’d be doing, but it had been in the cards to take advantage of this last day in the lull between the regular season and playoffs, and he had been looking forward to it so fucking much, and now, now he wasn’t even sure if he’d be able to sneak back home without being followed and harassed.

[MrJiong]: Xi??

[XiErXi]: …

[XiErXi]: just thinking. Does it make sense for us to still be on for tonight?

[MrJiong]: …FUCK.

[MrJiong]: totally forgot [head in hands.jpg]

[XiErXi]: they’d totally follow me home, right…?

[MrJiong]: …

[MrJiong]: …yeah. Sorry.

[XiErXi]: …haha [crying]

[MrJiong]: !!

[MrJiong]: you’re not… you’re not actually crying right????

This fucking… how would anyone even come to that conclusion? It was an emote, okay, a motherfucking emote!! Being this sensitive, this, this pushy with his caring, like Xi was some fragile white lotus1 that would faint over your average, unflattering tabloid photo spread, fuck, it was so embarrassing, and so very _Jiong_ that Xi found himself needing a few fierce blinks to clear his suddenly blurry gaze before responding.

[XiErXi]: WHO FUCKING WOULD???

[MrJiong]: ah, um, I thought too much, sorry [sweats]

[XiErXi]: as you fucking should be!!

[XiErXi]: obviously the fact that we can’t meet at mine now fucking sucks!!!

[XiErXi]: but that doesn’t mean I’m going to fxcking cry! I’ve worked remote pretty much all day already, what’s a few more motherfucking hours!!!!!

[MrJiong]: [gasps] you want to stay at mine?

[MrJiong]: ah, but, there’s practically nothing there in the fridge

[MrJiong]: and I’ve barely any pans or anything in the kitchen

[MrJiong]: and, and if you order out, then you’ll need to answer the door

[XiErXi]: don’t you have in-home delivery? Bread & eggs & rice, you didn’t go out for those this morning right?

[XiErXi]: can’t I just order a couple more things? We’ll eat in no problem

[MrJiong]: but… isn’t Xi-er still tired from, from… [blushes]

[XiErXi]: haha [cold smile]

[XiErXi]: only fxxing reflecting now, hm?

[XiErXi]: don’t worry, I’ll make sure there’s an extra couple bowls of plain rice just for you

[MrJiong]: [kowtows]!!!

[MrJiong]: may emperor forgive this lowly servant!!

[MrJiong]: this lowly servant was thoughtless and wicked!!!!!

[XiErXi]: haha.

[MrJiong]: [crying]

[XiErXi]: HA. HA.

[MrJiong]: this lowly servant is still a growing boy QAQ

[MrJiong]: this lowly servant won’t perform his insignificant work well without meat ah [crying] [crying] [crying]

[XiErXi]: refusing to work, zhen thinks there’s no need for such a worthless servant to eat.

[MrJiong]: [grabbing emperor’s shapely thigh] emperor please show mercy!!!

[XiErXi]: this worthless servant! Clearly tell zhen your delivery box number, or be put to death!!

Oh for the days when Xi still felt a shred of embarrassment while carrying on this shameful kind of exchange. Fuck, he was even a little hard right now, thinking of how Jiong would probably bow and scrape and curry favour with him tonight, even though there was no chance in hell that Xi would ever even think of deliberately refusing to allow his lover a share of whatever tasty things he’d made.

Jiong, motivated by said imaginary threats, was very quick about handing over the information needed for Xi to have his usual service deliver a few things. He was also almost alarmingly joyous when Xi casually sought his opinion on whether he wanted there to be leftovers.

[MrJiong]: ah, ah~ tomorrow’s love love lunch ah~

[XiErXi]: …you

[XiErXi]: you know I’m literally just making rice and a side dish or two, right??

[XiErXi]: what the fck is ‘love love’ about rice and some fucking meat??

[MrJiong]: made with love~~ made with love~~

Well, it looked like all was finally right in the world of Jiongjiong. Xi rolled his eyes, pressed enter on the order form, and went rifling through the kitchen cupboards to see if there were any possibilities he’d overlooked in his somewhat haphazard earlier search for sustenance. Said search yielded a large, never-used frying pan in its original packaging, and three packages of long expired ramen, so the menu for the night was tentatively updated to ‘shitty stir fry and rice’, and then forgotten in favour of work.

Well, work and keeping an eye on the news, and allowing himself only one peek or two at his default search of Janey’s stage name. Much as he refused to let himself reopen the stupid trending comment thread on her video, he couldn’t help but want to know how much attention that piece of news was getting, in amidst the scandalous photos of Janey and Sylina getting soused and touchy-feely at a bar in Haeguk.

Thankfully, the comment thread only continued to barely stay on the front page of the search, ruthlessly suppressed by the media’s eager revisiting of every other time Janey had been rumoured to be fucking someone. After eyeing the results for the second time, Xi let out a half relieved, half guilty sigh—surely the last thing Sy and Janey would have wanted was to wake up to bullshit like this—and then forced his attention back to the document he’d been working on.

He couldn’t bring himself to go back into the still-humming private stream’s chat to talk to his friends, not now. Not when he’d gone from laughing at the ridiculous things his friends said about his lover to tearing up over the thought of not being able to see Jiong, and dying to be hugged to death by said same motherfucking Jiong.

_I’ll stream to them tonight,_ Xi told himself. _Fuck, I might as well just stream my own show like usual._ His fans would love the extra excitement, and his wallet would love the extra spike in viewership by various gossip-hungry passers-by. There’d be a price to pay—bullshit headlines about how he was using Captain Michael Star as a stepping-stone to more lucrative fame, most likely. But he found himself thinking about what it would take to pull it off anyway.

Xi had streamed like usual even while the aftermath of Janey’s drunken birthday call had his stream mailbox constantly flooded with angry or pleading or disdainful comments from both fans and media hacks. It’d been a bit nerve-wracking to see his stream flirting with the karaoke genre front page while he puttered around turning a large batch of shortcrust pastry into tarts and meat pies and sausage rolls, but three days later, he’d been back on the sixth or seventh page like usual, and the message tide had already begun to recede.

Possibly, this time around, things wouldn’t blow over so quickly, since his relationship with Jiong invoked the intense curiosity of more than one large fan base. But it would eventually. Years of watching Janey and some of his other famous friends deal with this bullshit had taught him that this sort of scandal didn’t take very long to blow over.

* * *

That night, perhaps due to Xi’s bland press release and his careful preparations and contingency plans, the stream ended up rather pedestrian, at least for the first half-hour or so. The tiered, sub-only commenting block did its duty; the one or two hijacked subscriber accounts that spoke up with sly, intrusive questions after months of inactivity were quietly and efficiently probated, and the most rowdy the chat got was the first time Jiong was allowed to show his face on stream.

> Fan AAA: ohhhhhh the rumours were real??

> Xmyheart: heheheh, our Xi-er’s pulling power has always been destructive

> Fan Z: wow wow wow that’s a gamer?? A pro gamer???

> Fan Z: wtf!! Looks way too clean, too fresh ah

> swearmouse: meh, looks like some f***ing actor to me

> swearmouse: too handsome, if it wasn’t our Xi I’d say they paid a f***ing model to appear

Naturally, Claire could not bear to resist getting in a few covert, no, blatant licks in while _she_ was still just some stream passerby, and Jiong was very much not.

> starmike: haha, thanks for all the praise [smile]

And of course Jiong wouldn’t take it lying down, even under the condition that he wasn’t allowed to jiongjiong, and had even had his MrJiong identity temporarily probated after one too many mutterings about how amusing it would be to have a screaming slapfight with himself over Xi’s metaphorical hand in marriage. At the time, he’d had his arms firmly around Xi’s waist, and his hands had been wandering deliciously, so Xi had had to resort to desperate measures to make his disdain of such cheap methods understood.

Cooking in Jiong’s under-equipped kitchen was already an experience; cooking while on stream, and thus having to pay attention to how he looked and what was in frame, _and_ while resolutely ignoring the rapt way Jiong was watching him, was nothing more and nothing less than the greatest trial of Xi’s wretched life.

While the rice cooked, he chopped up some cabbage, spring onions and carrots and made up a hasty stir-fry sauce with lime, sugar, rice vinegar, fish sauce (which Jiong had mysteriously had a non-expired bottle of tucked away deep in a cupboard), sesame oil and red pepper. The half pound of pre-sliced pork was already marinating in the fridge, and the Chinese sausage2 had gone in on top of the rice, so that meant all the prep was done, and Xi was left twiddling his thumbs and eyeing the covered pot of rice while Jiong continued to rain down hatefully happy smiles in chat.

> starmike: so yeah, not really a romantic first meeting

> starmike: obviously I liked it anyway [smile]

> Xmyheart: …was that _really_ your first meeting?

> starmike: ? yeah?

> Xmyheart: wellll, the thing is

> Xmyheart: I’m talking to someone rn that says it wasn’t??

* * *

  1. **White lotus (flower), 白莲花:** Chinese phrase/idiom, colloquial way to refer to a very pure, innocent, kind type of person. Has also become a way to refer to someone who assiduously pretends to be such a person on the surface, but engages in vicious schemes in private.↩

  2. **Chinese sausage:** a generic term referring to many different types of sausages originating in China. The southern flavour of Chinese sausage is commonly known as _lap cheong_ (Cantonese). It is monstrously good in fried rice.↩





	15. The fated meeting nearly no one remembers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here marks the start of Mass Release Time, a.k.a as me blowing my old schedule away because I'm tired of it. Also I'm quitting per-chapter summaries because I'm tired of those too T_T.

“What the fuck?” Xi found himself saying, lightly, before he remembered how many uncharitable people were currently watching. “I mean, _I_ don’t remember meeting jio—Mike, I mean, not before the little cake delivery thing.”

“Me either,” Jiong said, taking the chance to get in close behind Xi again, for what was probably the fifth time this night. Xi, trapped by the simmering rice pot in front and the hovering camera that had him and said pot in frame from a top-down angle, couldn’t do as he wished and reach back to give Jiong a warning shove. “They have any proof?”

> sidestander: hey, hey, hey, just what are you two doing?

> sidestander: isn’t that Star-nim’s hand on Xi’s waist????

> Fan ZZ: isn’t that just Star hyung trying to get closer to the rice (¯﹃¯*)

> Fan AAA: yeah, sausage + rice so fucking good

> Fan AAA: #1 lazy dinner

> swearmouse: kind of sad for Star-nim, though, it’s just rice after all

> swearmouse: Xi-oppa, Xi-oppa, don’t you still have those dumplings left over from last month (〃∇〃 )

Man, when Claire wanted to get at someone, she really went all out. When was the last time Xi had seen her use such expressive kaomoji? And that wasn’t even touching her calling ‘Xi-oppa, Xi-oppa’ like some fucking ghost…

> Fun Fan B: *appears in a flash* I can come over for dinner tomorrow, right? I remember you stress-made a bunch?

> YuriGod: petitioning to check on the dumplings!! I’m in your area right now, I can chase away reporters from your building as well!!!

> XiXi: it’s swearie’s imagination, lol, those are long gone

> YuriGod: ah… but… _:(´ཀ`」 ∠ ):_

> Fun Fan B: [cry] then… what’s going to be for tomorrow’s dinner?

Sometimes, he really didn’t know what to do with these friends of his. While he was somewhat touched by the sudden, semi-obvious rush to sideline Xmyheart’s weird little bombshell, drowning it out in unrelated conversation, the tone of the nonsense they were saying was still very much intended to needle Jiong. ‘Ah? Xi’s cooking you dinner? Well, you’re only getting a rushed one, a sub-standard one, an inferior one~~’ —that kind of thing.

Meanwhile, in the seldom-used mod-only chat:

[mod_mayuuu]: I don’t know, I think the vid seems legit?

[mod_mayuuu]: that or someone paid way too much to fake it

[mod_urakilla]: yeah, it’s got that shitty old Daehu watermark

[mod_urakilla]: dunno if the software for that is even available anymore

[mod_mayuuu]: oh?

[XiErXi]: yeah, the guys that ran that k-club were stingy as fuck

[XiErXi]: used old-ass software for vid output, _and_ it was read-only unless you paid for clips

[mod_z]: wow, and they were still that popular?

[XiErXi]: haha, all the clubs back then were terrible. Daehu was actually the most reasonable one

[XiErXi]: couldn’t even get vid output from most of them

[mod_urakilla]: yeah, that’s why the commercial side of things has always been so strong

[mod_urakilla]: people trying to make back their gear investment

[mod_mayuuu]: so I guess I can give Xmy the go-ahead?

[XiErXi]: yeah, yeah, sure

Xi had only watched about thirty seconds of the clip provided by the eager Xmyheart’s mystery informant, but nothing about it stood out as problematic. Sure, it looked to be a bog-standard, somewhat cringey challenge video from nearly ten years ago, back when facing off against (read: crushing) rival streamers and random wanna-bes was the highlight of Xi’s night, but such embarrassing content could be found anywhere. What _was_ interesting was how on earth that video was supposed to mean that Xi had met Captain Jiong, when a quick face-search of the entire video pulled up zero hits of said captain.

> Xmyheart: doesn’t anyone want to know how they really met??

> Xmyheart: I saw proof, ok, gold-plated proof!!

> Fan AAA: …and?

> [swearmouse is doubting that there is any proof.]

> [Fan ZZ is only interested in rice, rice.]

> Xmyheart: they met in a k-club, ok! How is that not news??

> Fun Fan B: lolol yeah right

> Xmyheart: for real, it was even at Daehu!

> sidestander: post proof, then

> Xmyheart: [daehu-meeting.vid]

> **Xmyheart pours out a fragrant splash of wine to the gods! Xmyheart has pinned** [daehu-meeting.vid] **to the channel for an hour!**

> YuriGod: wow, so confident

> Fan AAA: Xmy-noona, ah… haven’t you just been deceived??

> Xmyheart: what frigging deception, haha

> Xmyheart: don’t you recognize the guy in the challenge, the one with the light effect mask? Hmm???

> Fan ZZ: omg

> swearmouse: ?? I don’t?

For someone that frequently acted like a weird mix of Xi’s diehard fan and the despotic gatekeeper of his harem, Claire had surprisingly little knowledge of who was who in the karaoke circle Xi had spent a good chunk of his time in over the years. Or, well, that was probably being a bit harsh, considering that the guy in the challenge video—the guy Xi had been facing off against—wasn’t strictly someone considered part of the circle.

After all, though Andy Bai had been a part of Eric’s group, it hadn’t been for more than a few months before he hit it big. And once that happened, he hadn’t been proactive about keeping touch with the few contacts and friends he’d made in the circle. Probably, if Janey and Xi and company hadn’t all grown up on the same street, and hadn’t still been seeing each other’s family for one reason or another, Janey would have drifted apart from everyone like that as well.

“Anything ringing a bell for you, Mike?” Xi asked, more for the show of it than because he cared. “And honestly, could you move? Rice is almost done, so I want to start the meat.”

No response, just the tightening hold of Mike’s hand on Xi’s hip.

“Mike?”

[MrJiong]: this…

[XiErXi]: what ‘this’?? So VR suits were tighter back then, fucking sue me

[MrJiong]: no, I mean

[MrJiong]: this might be a problem

[XiErXi]: ??? what??

[MrJiong]: I mean, I, that guy, I was dating him back then

Uh-oh.

“Sweetie?” Xi twisted around to meet Jiong’s blank look of panic, taking delicate care to keep the fingers he was pinching Jiong’s arm with out of the camera’s sightline, “why the hell are you bullying me like this on stream, huh? Can’t you wait?”

> Fan C: o_O!!

> swearmouse: wtaf?

> YuriGod: heheheheheheehe

> Policefan B: oi, oi, break that the hell up! What nonsense are you doing to our Xi-er!!!!

Sadly, Jiong didn’t flinch when pinched; he just stood there one more moment. Only when Xi scowled at him did he come back to his senses and take a step back, allowing Xi enough room to navigate over to the fridge and grab the marinated pork.

> XiXi: chill out, haha

> XiXi: just a bit of teasing, you know how it goes [wink]

> Fan AAA: isn’t that how criminals are encouraged, lol

> Xmyheart: Xi-er should definitely punish~

> swearmouse: +1 for punishment

> Policefan B: +50 for strictest punishment

> mr fly: woah, woah, woah, just what’s happening here?

> mr fly: our Xi’s being molested on stream???

“You guys are all one hundred percent thinking too much,” Xi said, moving the frying pan into place on the stove. He hated that he could still feel Jiong’s tense, freaked-out frame hovering nearby, hated that he’d pushed himself to do more than just cooking up a pot of rice and calling it a day, hated that the team behind Andy Bai were shameless enough that they’d leap at the chance to stir up drama like this on Xi’s stream.

He didn’t for a moment believe that Xmyheart had been handed that silly video by some random, overly curious fan; a lightning quick search on ‘Andy Bai’ made it clear that he would be coming out with a new album in a bit. Considering the amount of dubiously earned attention Xi had gained by having his fledgling relationship with Jiong outed for everyone to see, it was only natural that _someone_ would try and squeeze out a benefit from it in this fashion.

> XiXi: swearie, the challenger in the vid is Radian

> XiXi: you know, Radian from Geometrica?

> swearmouse: whaa? really??

Technically he went by his real name now, but nothing said that Xi had to make things easy for Bai and his asinine PR team. And anyway, it was more than likely that more people would recognize him from the group he’d debuted in than would recognize him solo, not because he hadn’t had any solo success, but because Geometrica had been a big deal for a year or two, a scarily big deal.

Sure enough:

> swearmouse: wow… so crazy that he’d do that

> YuriGod: hehehe weren’t we all nuts back then?

> XiXi: yeah, it wasn’t anything uncommon to go around challenging people over and over

> sidestander: so that’s how it is, huh?

> Xmyheart: waiiiit, does that mean??? I’m talking to mfing radian rn????????

> anbai: …um, yeah?

And of course, of course, of _course_ the guy himself, or at least the person operating the guy’s ID had a thick enough face to show up in person. Xi could see the headlines already: _Bai’s Old Rival?!_ , _Bai Bai’s Embarrassing History Revealed!!_ , _Before He Rose Up, Star B’s Shocking Appearance?!_ Because Xi, never mind what he was doing now, back then, they’d _totally_ been hardcore rivals to the bitter end, rather than two people who smiled and nodded at each other when their teams happened to pass by at the concours.

> anbai: [blushes] you guys must think I’m really free, really shameless

> anbai: sorry, Xi, I just couldn’t help myself

> XiXi: haha, it’s no big deal

> XiXi: how’s the new album coming along?

There, that should be enough of a lead-in to satisfy Bai and his shameless PR flacks. Jiong was still freaking out on the other side of the kitchen counter, but at least he was doing it well out of frame. And now Xi had enough space to start up the stir fry and, and there’d soon enough be something to eat to calm himself down and provide a minor talking point.

> anbai: so yeah, absolutely would not recommend showing your face onstream for the first time like that

> anbai: though idk if I actually need to, surely there can’t be any kids out there as boneheaded as I was back then >.<

> swearmouse: so wait, wait, let me get this straight

> swearmouse: you were trying to show off? For Star-hyung??

> anbai: it was totally in vain, too [cry] [cry]

> Fan AAA: yeah lol that performance was uh

> anbai: I know, right??

> anbai: couldn’t show my face at school for a week _(´ཀ`」 ∠) _

> swearmouse: …wow

Somehow, having seen that reaction from Claire, Xi couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for Bai. Claire had very deliberately marked herself away on global chat, and hadn’t even responded yet to Xi’s apology from the day of the event, but if she had been in the mood to talk to him, Xi could easily imagine the torrent of disappointment and disgust she’d be unleashing on her former idol. _To think that his taste could be like this,_ he could almost hear her saying. _Truly f***ing unbelievable…_

> XiXi: so I guess mike was in the crowd, then? One of the background blobs?

> anbai: haha, you’ve got it exactly

> anbai: so the video’s just… it’s not like, _proof_ proof, on the face of it

> anbai: but I have the chatlog as well, the official room one from after you were done crushing me, lol

> Gossip Fan B: *perks up* ehhhh???

> anbai: it’s nothing special, it’s actually…

> anbai: I don’t think Mike even said anything [sweatdrop]

> mr fly: but surely you can let us see it, hm? [smile]???

> anbai: it’s literally just got his ID announced as being part of the room

So one had to wonder why the fuck the great Andy Bai would show up, most likely in person, to post so-called proof of, of what exactly? Xi and Jiong having happened to pass each other by in a fleeting manner ten years ago?

> anbai: should I just copy and paste? Will that be weird?

> Xmyheart: ah ah ah let jiejie help you ok~ it’s easy~

> **Xmyheart pours out a fragrant splash of wine to the gods! Xmyheart has pinned** [placeholder.txt] **to the channel for an hour!**

> Xmyheart: I’ve given baibai access, so just go ahead~

> anbai: haha, ok, thank you [bows]

> **anbai, as Xmyheart’s fellow petitioner, has pinned** [daehu chatlog.txt] **to the channel for an hour!**

Xi, currently frying up the second batch of the marinated pork, couldn’t break off midway to gawk at the stupid chatlog the way most of the people in chat were doing. He told himself that seeing what happened later than everyone would be fine. He told himself that everything would be fine even if said chatlog had him being a monumental prick; it had happened ten years ago, and there was only so hot the media could fan the flames against him over some minor backtalk from back when he’d been in uni.

> Gossip Fan B: this…

> [Gossip Fan B is dying of laughter!]

> sidestander: ??

> Fan AAA: hahaha side-noona, you’re new here, right?

> Fan AAA: learn well!!! The cruelty of our Xi-er never changes!

> YuriGod: hohoho even back then…

> anbai: bullied to death, QAQ

> anbai: senior, just how will you compensate, huh?

> sidestander: still don’t get it [confused]

> Fan ZZ: come on, imagine it! A young, earnest challenger, right, boldly going forth to sing opposite the big god, right

> Fan ZZ: challenger loses face, he’s just crushed, right, and after, the god shows up and is like, I hope your oppa comforts you well~~~

> sidestander: ohhhh, and then Star-hyung didn’t even say anything…

> Xmyheart: that aside, just think, how would God Xi even know there was a special oppa watching for baibai?

> Xmyheart: obviously, poor baibai told him! Probably there was even a request, you know, ‘can god show mercy’, that kind of thing

> sidestander: lol yikes

> Fan AAA: and as you can see!! Request was completely denied!

> Gossip Fan B: [cough] [cough] can this hyung make a point [cough]

> Gossip Fan B: it was cruel, sure, very cruel, but if you think about it, wasn’t God Xi doing andy a favour?

> Gossip Fan B: after all, with those looks, if he went clinging to oppa to comfort him after his loss… [cough] [cough] [cough]

> anbai: either way it all failed QAQ

> anbai: singing not enough, tears not enough, it wasn’t long before I gave up

By now, the stir fry was pretty much done, and the rice pot had long since been taken off the flame to steam a bit, so Xi finally had space to raise the first of many questions in his chat with Jiong:

[XiErXi]: were you really dating this guy back then?

[MrJiong]: [sweats]

[MrJiong]: it was more kind of like…

[MrJiong]: um……

[XiErXi]: fxcking just say it

[MrJiong]: I will, I will, it’s just

[XiErXi]: fucking. say. it.

[MrJiong]: *clings to Xi-er’s legs*

[MrJiong]: please don’t be mad?

[XiErXi]: what fucking

[XiErXi]: I’m asking you a simple fucking question1!!

[XiErXi]: what the fuck is there to be mad about other than this bullshit delaying!! ANSWER! IT!!

[MrJiong]: …

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong doesn’t want Xi-er to think bad of him T_T

Xi, currently chopping up the steamed Chinese sausage with a lot more force than was strictly necessary, didn’t know at all how to feel. He could feel Jiong’s pleading gaze on his back. He could see the lively mocking going on in chat, worlds away from the shocked reception he’d half expected.

Bai’s PR team was probably ecstatic. With just a bit of crying and sighing over the one that got away, he seemed much more relatable, a distinct step away from the cool, pure beauty type that he’d played as Radian of Geometrica. Xi might take a short-term hit from his rabid fans, but they’d likely soon be steered into frothing over publicity for the new album, healing Bai Bai’s past hurt by shoving the title song as far up the charts as it could go.

Technically, Xi should be feeling relieved. Annoyed, but relieved, because now he could even predict the future slant of the media’s articles on him, and that was better than being in the dark. Instead, he was—he was _furious_.

He didn’t want to be furious. He didn’t want to feel jealousy grinding away in his chest, jealousy at the thought of Jiong having been the type that someone like Bai would wildly pursue. Bai was _gorgeous_. Bai hadn’t come up as one of Jiong’s former paramours, likely because his company had suppressed it in preparation for this PR move, after which any problematic pictures or other hard evidence of their former involvement would completely lose its sting.

Even if something serious popped up, Bai would have the halo of being the one who lost out, the one cast aside by an uncaring Jiong. His PR team would spin him as too young to know better, and Jiong’s PR would inwardly cry tears of blood while emphasizing that it was all such a long time ago, and anyway, didn’t everyone already know Michael Star had been a bit, heh heh, say no more?

[XiErXi]: still not saying it??

[MrJiong]: …QAQ

[XiErXi]: …

**XiErXi has temporarily blocked MrJiong!**

“In my defence,” Xi said, as he added a generous helping of thinly sliced Chinese sausage to each of the plates in front of him, “oh, what can I even say… long night, maybe?”

> Fan AAA: then isn’t every night long??

> YuriGod: long night, schmong night, gimme dat rice (¯﹃¯*)

> [YuriGod is desperately wishing for the power to teleport!]

> mr fly: ah but, didn’t Yuyu say she was in the area? Is there a need to teleport when you can just walk [smile]

> YuriGod: whaaa, you’re here?

> YuriGod: long time no see~!

> [Hungry Fan B is desperately wishing for the power to cook!]

> [Xmyheart is desperately wishing for the power to cook!]

Now that Xi and the slightly stiff Jiong were seated on the couch in the living room and digging into the loaded plates, the rain of desperate wishes for this and that was never-ending.

> [sidestander is desperately wishing for the money to buy that glorious view!]

> sidestander: soooo pretty omg, I didn’t know there were even any high rise flats in that district

> starmike: haha, it didn’t look anywhere near this nice five years ago

> starmike: and even now, it’s such a business-heavy district, the nearest supermarket is half a mile away and pretty much just sells pressed shirts, cigarettes and ramen [sweatdrop]

Xi, still smiling as he ate, couldn’t help but feel a wave of resentment at the fact that Jiong would answer fucking random non-questions in his chat, but in private… haha.

Just. Haha.

At least the stir-fry was good.

> Fan C: ah, this is murder ah ah ah

> Fan C: aren’t you just dragging us all on your date??

> XiXi: if it’s any comfort to you, the rice is a bit softer than it really should be [smile]

> Fan C: ……

> [Fan C is threatening to wash this channel in blood!!!]

> [Fan C demands compensation for the abused single dogs1 of this channel!!!!]

> anbai: speaking of compensation…

> XiXi: hahaha, what could I even give you these days that you’d even want

> XiXi: favourite pastry, maybe? I’ll try my hand at anything, just let me know what you’d like

> anbai: well, if it’s something I want [shifty eyes]

Now, though Xi still couldn’t really remember the events that had led to his crushing poor, naive Andy Bai onstream all those years ago, he couldn’t help but begin to understand why he’d gone that far. This fucking coyness, over a goddamn pastry that wouldn’t even be eaten if it was fucking sent—

> anbai: …could you maybe lend me Mike?

* * *

  1. **Single dog (单身狗):** Chinese slang, a self-deprecating phrase for people who are single.↩




**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five more chapters to come~


	16. [XiErXi would like to lend a certain someone his fist.]

The chat exploded.

> [Hungry Fan B keels over!]

> Fan C: this… this request… [sweatdrop]

> [YuriGod is desperately awaiting God’s response!!]

> [Fan C is desperately awaiting God’s response!]

> [sidestander is desperately awaiting God’s response!]

> mr fly: well well well

> [mr fly is eagerly awaiting God’s response!!]

Meanwhile, in a certain once-silent private chat:

[swair]: W! T! A! F!!!!!!!!

[swair]: is this jiong fxxxk some kinda f*xing demon???

[swair]: a succubus????

[XiErXi]: p sure it’s incubus for guys

[swair]: who f*ckking cares which!

[swair]: Lend him!! Lend him and dont f****ing receive him back!!!!!!

Jiong, who had paused mid-chew after seeing Bai’s coy ‘request’, was currently soldiering on, eating with his head bowed, as if the furore in chat had nothing to do with him.

And, in another private chat:

[mymy]: can god Xi forgive!!!

[mymy is repeatedly kowtowing to God Xi!!]

[XiErXi]: ? is this Xmyheart jiejie…?

[mymy]: yes [cry]

[mymy]: idek what’s going on [cry]

[mymy]: to tell the truth, I used to work with Andy’s main PR guy, they asked a favour

[mymy]: I thought it’d be good for you to kinda steer the slant a bit, push down all that BS about your looks, make it a fun dumb rivalry or smth

[XiErXi]: jiejie, you didn’t need to go that far

[XiErXi]: you know how quickly this kind of shit passes

[mymy]: but!! I wanted to try!!

[mymy]: and this, this fucking guy!!!!!!!!!!

[mymy]: really asking such bullshit! It’s not his PR, it’s 1000% him!!!

[mymy]: who carries a fucking grudge this long ahhh!!

[XiErXi]: [pats]

[XiErXi]: don’t worry, ok? I can handle it

Xi was sure he could handle it. He’d played out several silly small-time beefs before, with other groups, with other streamers, and done so enough times to know that the fastest way to settle someone thirsting to stir up drama was to project a front of either confusion or unconcern. Anyone who didn’t eventually give up in the face of either of those reactions could safely be reported to the police.

The problem was, Xi wasn’t sure he _wanted_ to handle it that way, shrugging off or brushing off Bai’s sly follow-up remarks. He knew he had to respond somehow, he knew it wouldn’t benefit him if he tried to annoy Bai in response, but…

> XiXi: sorry, won’t lend [smile]

> Hungry Fan B: … [deflates]

> anbai: oh? you’re that attached already? [wink]

Fuck, of course, of _course_ he didn’t know when to quit. Of _course_ he’d shift to this pointed, passive-aggressive teasing. Probably, in a minute, Bai would start sighing about how, well, he just hoped so much that Jiong would treat Xi better, and that things kept on going well for the two of them…

> anbai: well, if it’s like that

> XiXi: seriously, though, fave pastry?

> anbai: hmm…

> anbai: gingerbread men?

> XiXi: hoho, I see where this is going

> XiXi: you want me to decorate them so they look like him, right? Punishment’s very easy then, lolol

> XiXi: just snapping off the head repeatedly can be satisfying ah

> Fan AAA: this…

> [Fan AAA is feeling worried for Star-hyung!]

> anbai: uhhh, I really just like gingerbread

> anbai: my mum always made them as men, they can be any shape really

> XiXi: haha, sorry

> XiXi: really shouldn’t measure you by my standard of spite [sweatdrop smile]

> anbai: haha, it’s fine

> anbai: people cope differently I guess

More to the point, there was no way in hell the great Andy Bai would ever even jokingly accept Jiong-shaped cookies he could toy with or bite in half on stream; it was utterly not the kind of thing even someone with his relaxed, more relatable Holy Father1 image would do. No one would bat an eyelash at Janey hosting a bonfire of her ex’s clothes, but Bai Bai doing the same? _That_ would be news.

> anbai: really though, if I’m being mega honest?

> anbai: I’ve, well, I always wanted to have a challenge rematch [blushes]

What the fuck kind of grudge was this guy carrying??? Rematch, what fucking rematch, did he have even the slightest awareness of his identity as a star? Even with one or two shameful performances in his recentish history, he’d managed to claw his way up into stardom, and yet here he was, earnestly requesting some fucking karaoke challenge rematch with a fat, no-name former k-streamer?

[mymy]: disgusting!!!!!!

[mymy]: his PR now fucking begging us to go along, what ‘us’?

[mymy]: i’m your fan ok, not pr!! I even told them that, and they’re still spamming me!!!!!

[XiErXi]: it’s fine, just tell me their ID

[XiErXi]: I’ll handle it

[mymy]: i’m really fucking sorry about this U_U

[mymy]: guy you want is BaiBeautiful

Haha. Fuck, when even the ID was named that shamelessly, Xi hardly knew how he was going to settle this in a way that didn’t have him completing a nonsensical challenge only his handful of hardcore fans would ever even slightly believe that he won.

> XiXi: ok if we finish eating first?

> anbai: oh, of course, right [blushes]

**XiErXi has unblocked MrJiong.**

[XiErXi]: quickly confess wtf you did to this guy

[XiErXi]: you have 30 secs to fess up, no concrete answer and I’ll just block again

[MrJiong]: that…

[XiErXi]: 29! 28!! 27!!!

[MrJiong]: w-well, when jiongjiong was very young and very stupid, that guy… jiongjiong used to have that guy as one of jiongjiong’s spare tires2…

[XiErXi]: …you had more than one?

[MrJiong]: [sweats] before God Xi passes judgement, can jiongjiong just say something?

[XiErXi]: 18!!! 17!!!!! 16!!!!!!!

[MrJiong]: they all knew the situation! jiongjiong wasn’t good, but jiongjiong wasn’t doing it secretly ah

[XiErXi]: then why the fuck is he still raging after you like this?

[MrJiong]: [sweats] [sweats] [sweats] um…

[XiErXi]: 5!! 4!!! 3!!!!

[MrJiong]: the same night you crushed him, I tried, I asked if they’d all three of them want to give it a go with me at the same time

[MrJiong]: he didn’t want to, so he left, and ah, um, since the other two didn’t leave, jiongjiong just spent the night doing it with them

[XiErXi]: …? That’s it??

[MrJiong]: well, after, he said he didn’t want to see jiongjiong anymore if jiongjiong wouldn’t stop meeting the others

[XiErXi]: and????

[MrJiong]: [shrinks back] jiongjiong didn’t see him again after that

[XiErXi]: …hahaha fuck

[MrJiong]: um… can jiongjiong ask…

[XiErXi]: wtaf in that story was so explosive that you couldn’t tell me???

[XiErXi]: just what is fucking wrong with you?

[MrJiong]: [hides]

[XiErXi]: so you were a fucking horny moron back then, so what? Didn’t you already tell me??

[XiErXi]: the way you carried on, I thought you were still fucking him, ok!!!!!

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong would never ( ㄒoㄒ )

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong was just worried Xi-er wouldn’t like hearing about all of it…

With _that_ settled, it was easy enough to finish off the negotiations with the head of Bai’s PR. Which was to say, finish them off, as in kill them entirely.

[BaiBeautiful]: ah, can’t you give us a little face?

[BaiBeautiful]: it’s trending so much right now, it’ll be good for you too [smile]

[XiErXi]: to be honest, I’m uncomfortable with how this has blown up

[XiErXi]: I just wanted to do a small thing tonight so my fans could get my side of the story on my dating Mike

[BaiBeautiful]: there’s nothing saying _you_ have to sing too, I understand you might not be in the right condition

What fucking worry about his being in ‘the right condition’, wasn’t his _not_ being in top-tier performance condition the whole fucking point of this?! Bai would get a surge of interest and accolades, and plenty of flattering comparisons and articles about his improvement from a nervous, simple sort of singer to what he was now, and Xi… haha. Xi would be the heartless corpulent, man-stealing blob who’d ‘definitely stagnated’ or even ‘totally regressed’ between back then and now.

[BaiBeautiful]: but couldn’t you let Andy do a little? Just a little bit?

[XiErXi]: not this time, sorry [smile]

[XiErXi]: probably just going to sign off and call it a night in a minute

[BaiBeautiful]: wait, right now?

[XiErXi]: Mike has training tomorrow, staying up late would be bad [smile]

It was probably too much to hope that those exact words would be conveyed directly to Bai, but Xi couldn’t help but hope for it all the same. Whatever the hell was on Bai’s mind, whyever he was so determined to make a splash in front of someone that _he_ had supposedly been the one to cut ties with, Xi fervently hoped that seeing such words would screw with Bai’s night at least as much as his own night had been screwed with.

> XiXi: sorry to disappoint, Andy, but I’m actually thinking of signing off now

> XiXi: rematch some other time, maybe?

> anbai: wow, isn’t it kind of early?

> starmike: I’ve got training tomorrow and stuff, so you can just blame me for dragging Xi off with me [smile]

Heheh, those fucking smiles had nearly the same power as jiongjiong’s nauseating tildes.

> anbai: if you know you’re wrong, then why do it? Why not leave him to sing with me?

> XiXi: I have work tomorrow too, haha, mike’s exaggerating

> anbai: oh? I thought you worked from home?

My god, the amount of research he had put into this… well, he couldn’t have done it personally. It was hardly a secret, anyway, that Xi worked wherever and almost whenever he pleased.

Still, wasn’t this kind of sad?

> XiXi: well yeah, but it’s nice to get an early start

> XiXi: haven’t done that these last two days, so

> anbai: oh, so it’s like that…

> YuriGod: andy ah, you’re still too innocent ah, still not reading the mood?

> Fan C: lolol for real

> Fan AAA: it’s time for Star-hyung to eat3 the second meal~ second meal~

> Fan ZZ: can’t you be more careful ah!!! We’ve been jiongjiong free this long, don’t jinx, you’ll summon him and it’ll be destruction!!!

> anbai: ? what’s jiongjiong?

> swearmouse: radian-nim, it’s better you don’t know. Trust me.

> XiXi: in any case, it’s about that time guys, so goodnight

> XiXi: Andy, hit me up on chat or something, we could def do a rematch. Maybe make an event of it [smile]

> anbai: oh, that might work, haha

> anbai: talk to you later then [smile]

> starmike: you guys have all been really nice to me tonight, sorry I’m repaying you like this and stealing Xi early [blush] [blush]

> Fan AAA: lol is that the face of someone being stolen??

It was the face of someone marvelling at the sheer poison someone could load up alongside two blushing emojis. If Xi hadn’t been so annoyed at Bai’s relentless pushing of the stupid challenge thing, he’d have felt a little sorry for him—oh, alright, he wouldn’t, he’d just feel like he _should_ feel sorry for him. All of that effort, and for what? Had Jiong even replied directly to Bai, or acknowledged Bai in any way, other than the one time he leapt to Xi’s unneeded defence?

> XiXi: ok, ok, signing off, goodnight [smile]

> [YuriGod is hoping God Xi can sleep very well~]

> [mr fly is hoping Yuyu can also sleep very well~]

“Huh,” Xi murmured, now that the camera was offline, and all that was left of tonight’s stream was the usual end-of-stream burst of activity, made up of various people leaving the chat, joining in at the last minute to try and dredge up gossip, or lamenting that they were hungry. “Didn’t think he was back on planet yet.”

“Who?” Jiong set down his nearly empty plate and inched a bit closer to Xi on the couch, his arm creeping slowly around Xi’s waist, as if doing that would make his attempt to get closer to Xi less noticeable. “Anyone I know?”

“Yuri’s longtime sponsor, Mr. Fly,” Xi said, sitting back to deliberately block the progress of that sneaky arm. “Spends a truckload on sims just to talk to her, and is therefore our weirdest and richest fan.”

“Really?” Jiong leaned in closer, looking at Xi from beneath lowered lashes. “I don’t measure up?”

“You don’t.”

“Jiongjiong isn’t weird enough?”

“You—” Naturally, that was when Jiong chose to administer a brief, teasing bite to the side of Xi’s neck, a bite that included a lick. His hands weren’t idle, either, one curling around the back of Xi’s neck, the other smoothing a path down his chest and over his belly, a path going in a very obvious direction. “We—we need to talk.”

“Now?” There was something utterly irresistible about the way Jiong liked to pause to fondle and squeeze the curve of Xi’s lower belly before he finally put his hand on Xi’s cock. “Are you sure?”

“No fair,” Xi heard himself say, in a tone that was equal parts strangled and weak. “I—there’s, there’s still the leftovers.”

“Hmm?”

Fuck, he often did this, he liked to touch and squeeze Xi’s aching cock through cloth, teasing and stroking Xi through the fabric. Xi always wanted to rush things, to speed things along until Jiong was touching him directly, but he’d never had any luck doing it. Jiong only liked to rush when Xi didn’t want him to.

“Alright,” Jiong murmured, just as Xi was starting to cant his hips up, helplessly thrusting into Jiong’s firm grip. “Let’s sort out those leftovers first, then talk.”

Naturally, that wasn’t what happened. Xi knew what Jiong was doing, touching him throughout, standing close behind him as he struggled to put everything away, but knowing he was being manipulated was entirely different than mounting an adequate resistance. By the time the leftovers were in the fridge, and the pots and pans and plates were in the dishwasher, Xi was shivering with need.

When Jiong began to drag him towards the bedroom, he struggled, but it was only because he wanted to feel Jiong’s hands tightening their grip on him. “You said we would talk,” Xi whispered, but he went along with it, letting himself be forced to his hands and knees. “You liar.”

“Can’t jiongjiong talk to you like this?” And then his fingers were deep in Xi’s arse, stretching him, rubbing rhythmically inside, and all talk was briefly forgotten. “Xi-er?”

“Don’t…” Xi knew he sounded strangled, and he hated it, he hated that just this, just being fingered, just hearing Jiong say his name in that low, teasing tone could scramble him so thoroughly. “Don’t _do_ that, just—you know how much I need it, just please fucking do me. Give me your fucking cock. Please.”

Jiong laughed. He moved slowly, slowly, just too fucking slowly, kissing and nibbling at the back of Xi’s neck while he unbuttoned himself. “Beg me again.”

“You—!” _You **fucker** ,_ Xi almost said, before he remembered last night, and that one time two months ago, when Jiong had decided he didn’t like being cursed at so directly. “Please.”

“Again.”

“ _Please._ ”

Jiong’s hands had settled on Xi’s hips, their grip bruisingly tight, and though he could feel the slick head of Jiong’s cock pressing against him, there was no forward motion, no drive, no movement, _nothing_. “Again.”

“Fuck me. Please, fuck me.”

“What are you going to do,” Jiong murmured, bending forward, his breath hot on the back of Xi’s neck, his treacherous cock still just teasing, “if I say I don’t feel like it?”

“No, no, please—ugh!” Jiong’s first slow, deliberate thrust made a mockery of his murmured words, but even as Xi shivered, revelling in that wicked feeling of fullness, all movement stopped. “ _Please_ …”

“I’m tired.” He didn’t sound tired, he sounded like he was fucking smiling, enjoying himself, enjoying Xi’s ragged, desperate breathing, enjoying his wordless sobs. “Here’s an idea, why don’t you help me out?” His hands slid up Xi’s sides, then slid around to stroke up and down Xi’s heaving chest and stomach, as if there was nothing else he’d rather be doing. “Fuck yourself on me.”

Tears stung Xi’s eyes. “What if _I’m_ tired?” he spat. “I, I _cooked_ , while you just sat around and—ngh—panicked…” But he was already arching back, impaling himself on Jiong’s thick cock. “I can’t believe you.”

“You like it, don’t you?” Jiong’s voice was strained yet smug, smug enough that if Xi hadn’t been desperate to take in as much of his cock as was humanly possible, he’d have, he’d surely have reached back to give him a good, hard pinch… “Look how much you like it. Look how much you’re leaking.”

“Don’t—stop fucking up my rhythm!” It was too much stimulation, too much to have Jiong’s hand stroking him right now, but there was nothing Xi could do about it. Jiong, for all that he supposedly wasn’t doing any of the work, had nearly all his weight on Xi, and it was taking every bit of Xi’s strength to keep backing into him. “Please…”

“Tell me you’ll die without it.”

Xi gulped. He didn’t know if he could bear to. Up till now, there’d been an undertone of teasing in each of Jiong’s callous requests, but now, he sounded almost serious. As if he really wanted to hear Xi saying something so dramatic, so cheesy.

“I’ll…” Xi could feel his toes curling. How could he? How could he _want_ to say it? “I’ll die, Jiong. I’m dying.”

After that, there were no words between them, just breathless sounds, a garbled mix of groans and loud, filthy smacks. They came together again and again, slamming against each other, their movements frenzied, barely in sync. Xi only realized he was coming halfway through it, feeling the hot splash of his own come dampening the sheets beneath his belly.

He didn’t even know just when Jiong had forced him down so low, when he’d lost nearly all leverage. He’d needed it too much to pay attention, and he was already regretting it, regretting even as he struggled to arch back, to spread himself wide open, to take Jiong’s cock as deep as he could get it.

He was dying. He could feel Jiong’s low, desperate groan, he could feel each one of Jiong’s desperate, relentless thrusts, he could feel Jiong’s hands bruising him, one at his shoulder, one at his hip. He was going to come again, cementing the ruin of the last sheet.

“Do it,” Jiong urged him. “I have more. Let it out, soak it, come all over all my fucking sheets…”

Xi couldn’t breathe. Doing anything other than coming was beyond him. He seized, tightening down around the cock inside him, milking it even as he spilled. The sound Jiong made as he did that sent a helpless shiver through him. _Come in me,_ he wanted to say, but the pleasure went on stealing his breath, leaving him dazed and senseless beneath Jiong’s last few thrusts.

“Fuck,” Jiong rasped. “ _Fuck_.” And then he was shuddering, his cock pulsing deep inside Xi’s tight, sore ass. “Fuck.”

Little as Xi wanted to move, he still managed it. He couldn’t do anything less, not when Jiong’s voice was wavering like that. “’S alright,” he mumbled, reaching up to give a clumsy pat to the trembling hand hovering at his aching shoulder. “So good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” For emphasis, he gave Jiong’s hand a brief, weak squeeze. “Stop worrying, okay? Was really good.”

* * *

  1. **Holy Father:** Chinese slang for someone who is extremely saintly and forgiving, gentle, kind, etc. Has somewhat derogatory tone.↩

  2. **Spare tire:** Chinese slang for someone you know is interested in you, and that you keep hanging on the line for you in case your main interest doesn’t work out. Think second male leads in most Asian dramas.↩

  3. **Eat:** ‘eat’ is slang for fucking someone. Not sure of the specific origin, have seen this slang pop up in Chinese, Korean and Japanese webnovels. So the ‘second meal’ in this case would refer to Xi.↩




**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh Bai Bai shines well in this one~
> 
> Don't tell anyone, but Andy Bai is TOTALLY my favourite. He's so insecure, so spiteful, so resentful! So delightfully passive-aggressive!! It's just his unfortunate fate that he got entangled with the wicked jiongjiong back then, don't hate him too much ;_;


	17. Jiong: for the crime of bruising my Xi-er, I sentence myself to death!! Xi: …

Unfortunately, Xi’s mumbled reassurances weren’t enough to stem the tide of handwringing—real, actual handwringing—on Jiong’s part.

“It won’t be visible,” Xi tried, only to see Jiong’s already strained expression crumple. “Jiong, don’t.”

“I’m an idiot,” was the low, fierce response. “I should’ve been able to fucking control it.”

“Jiong, look at me,” Xi said, only to instantly regret it, because he really didn’t think he could bear to try and sit up, and the commanding reassurance he was trying to project was definitely losing something coming from someone laid out like a beached whale, too tired to even roll out of his own wet spot. “Jiong, please.”

Jiong shook his head, a brief, jerky movement almost as worrying as the way he was staring down at his hands. “I hate it.” Then, just as Xi hesitantly opened his mouth to ask for details, he added: “It feels too fucking good.”

“That… you mean, when you’re, when you’re holding me down, or…?”

“I could hold you down without hurting you,” Jiong said, flatly. “But I don’t, do I?”

“Jiong, sweetheart, please believe me when I say that holding me down hard enough that it hurts is, in fact, the point, at least for me.” Fuck, Xi wished he could sit up, there just wasn’t the right sort of effect saying this sort of thing half into the pillow. “If I didn’t want it to hurt, I would have fucking told you.”

“What if I didn’t listen?”

“Then I’d fucking well dump you, alright? Dump you, report you, trash your fucking reputation, etcetera.” Please god that he wouldn’t ask if Xi had ever had to cut someone off for crossing the line, because the last thing Xi wanted was to have his history of being temporarily mentally compromised enough to put up with emotional abuse being held up as the reason why his word couldn’t be trusted in this situation. “If you don’t think I’d do it, you can bloody well count on my friends to do it.”

“No, I just…”

“If it worries you this much,” Xi said, huffing a bit as he began a careful attempt at turning over, “we could, you could dial it back?”

Jiong didn’t say anything, just reached out to help support his weight and—embarrassingly—peel away the sticky sheets from his front. Then, with Xi now beached on his back on the unstained side of the bed, Jiong got up and stalked into the bathroom, then came back out with a deep frown and a dampened hand towel.

“Jiong?” Seeing him frowning as he approached, weighing the towel in his hand as if it were some sort of deadly weapon, Xi had to fight not to smile. “Jiong, talk to me.”

Jiong bowed his head, avoiding Xi’s gaze as he walked around to sit down on the dry side of the bed, squeezing in beside Xi’s prone, aching form. “I don’t want to dial back.” His voice was low and tense. Controlled. “It’s too fucking good.”

Worried, Xi started to turn his head in a bid to get a better look at Jiong’s expression, only for Jiong’s hand to settle in his hair and gently, but firmly prevent him. “What, I can’t even look at you?”

“I—sorry.” The hand towel Jiong had just started wielding paused, a warm, comforting weight against Xi’s stomach, and the hand that had been keeping Xi’s head still immediately lifted away. “It’s, I just feel I shouldn’t… I feel like I should be able to do without. That.”

“I don’t mind if you can’t,” Xi murmured. “Y’know. Do without it.”

“Sleepy?” When Xi nodded, the hand towel went back into gear, wiping away the stickiness on his belly, his groin, his upper thighs. “It’s like clockwork with you, the way you clock out when you’re satisfied.”

“Mmh.” Possibly, the wave of drowsiness hitting Xi right now was more due to the late night he’d had last night in this very same bed, tossed and turned and played around with by this very same man. Even when Jiong slid the cloth up between Xi’s thighs, working it into the cleft of his aching ass, Xi continued to nod off. “Hgh, you…”

“I’m not teasing,” Jiong muttered. “I know you don’t like being sticky. If it’s too—do you want me to stop?”

It did hurt, just not enough that Xi could be bothered to flinch in reaction, much less say anything to direct the cleansing process. “’M fine,” he found himself muttering in response. “T’morrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Talk. Talk then? Maybe?” Xi wasn’t sure if the words had come out clearly enough, but in the next moment, Jiong leaned in over him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Which was enough of an answer that Xi nodded again, and then snuggled right up against that warm, broad chest.

* * *

Initially, Xi’s primary thought upon being shaken awake by Jiong the next morning was that staying over with him had been a mistake. Yes, if they’d gone to Xi’s flat after the cursed karaoke event, it’d probably have meant that they wouldn’t have been able to see each other until Dom-V was all done with playoffs, but right now, faced with the thought of having to drag himself out of bed, Xi couldn’t help but consider it a fair trade.

Jiong’s newfound tendency to hover was not making things any easier. “I’m always like this,” Xi muttered. “You _know_ I’m like this in the mornings, alright? Stop fucking worrying.” But even as he said those harsh words, he was dragging Jiong down and in for a fierce hug. “Surely you know how much I like you.”

The way Jiong stiffened in his arms, and then returned the hug just a bit too enthusiastically was gratifying, considering the fact that Xi hadn’t meant to—to say something so sappy to his lover so openly. But it had felt right to say it, to draw an unspoken line between the tension signalled by Jiong’s over-attentive manner and the deep-seated worry that his upset after last night’s vigorous fuck had revealed. “Breakfast?” Xi didn’t feel at all in the mood to cook one, but sprucing up leftovers was something he could do. “Though I don’t think there’s enough that we could eat and still leave you your love-love lunch.”

“That’s okay,” Jiong said, his voice muffled against Xi’s chest, his warm breath just a little ticklish. “I’d rather eat it with you, anyway.” And if _that_ refusal to take the bait and sell some of his usual poisonous meng wasn’t a sign of his continued emotional unrest, Xi didn’t know what was. “Unless you’d rather eat out…?”

“Fuck no, that’d just mean being photographed dripping something down my front, wouldn’t it?” Xi ruffled Jiong’s hair. “There’s the press out there still, remember? Unless something big happened overnight, at least.”

“Sorry.” Jiong’s arms tightened around Xi again, almost too much to be borne. “Jiongjiong is really sorry.”

“Save it,” Xi muttered, now quite happy to return to being verbally short again, even if he wasn’t also in the mood to support it with physical actions, such as shoving at his silly lover or trying to wriggle out of his grasp. “And don’t think I forgot you owe me a talk, a _real_ talk, mind you, on just what the fuck you did that left the great Andy Bai thirsting for your head on a pike.”

Sadly, as they both exchanged the dubious comfort of the stained, rumpled bed for that of the kitchen, not much more information was forthcoming on that tricky subject. Well, there was information all right—all the relevant chatlogs and a handful of images Jiong could dig up from that time—but just looking at all of it didn’t immediately suggest any additional reason why Bai had come on so strong last night.

“And y’know, it isn’t, I’m not doing this to point fingers or whatever,” Xi murmured, as he projected a screen on the tiny kitchen table, one large enough that they could both see everything he was analysing as they ate. “It’s just that I don’t really even know Bai that well, so I’d like to get a better picture of what he might’ve been thinking.”

It was easy enough to figure out what the draw had been, back then, when Bai had barely dipped a toe into the karaoke circuit, and had mostly been orbiting around Jiong. A bastard Star, even one that was only lightly acknowledged by the main family, was someone to reckon with, especially compared to the general run of pro player. And that wasn’t taking into consideration the fact that Jiong had also been the textbook definition of a sexy bad boy type: delicate good looks, charisma enough to drown in, and not at all shy about clubbing people with it to get his own way.

Xi didn’t want to assume too much about Bai just from his few, dim memories of him, or even from the earnest, bubbly personality he showed in the chatlogs. But for someone who initially rarely spoke up, someone who came off as an endearing mix of shy and desperate for approval the more he participated in Jiong’s team’s fan chatgroup, Xi could definitely see the appeal of the kind of guy confident and callous enough to juggle as many as five potential lovers who all knew about (and resented) each other.

It probably hadn’t helped Bai’s infatuation that Jiong’s team had been consistently successful. Or that he and his teammates had been just picky enough about who tagged along to fawn on them that being allowed to do so would have made your average uni student feel terribly special.

At least that was the overall impression Xi got. “Why’d you stop?” he couldn’t help but pause to ask, around a mouthful of fragrant, reheated rice. “I mean—”

“Aside from it being a massively bad idea to keep it going, scandal or no?” Jiong said, eyeing the current chatlog, a raucous private group chat following an unexpected win. It had devolved into enthusiastic, slightly cringey cybering halfway through, and though Jiong had yet to say anything, the way he was fidgeting as he demolished his bowl of stir fried pork and rice made it obvious that he’d much rather skip the topic.

_Fat fucking chance,_ Xi thought. _God knows when next I’ll have the time to pin him down to talk about all this._ “What I really want to know is, um, is if you prefer more than one, um.” _It’s one fucking question, Xi, just fucking ask…_ “I mean, are you poly?”

“Uh,” Jiong said, pausing with his fork halfway between his plate and his mouth, looking so flummoxed that Xi couldn’t help but smile. “I, um. I’ve never thought about it.”

“What I _really_ should ask is if, if you’re seeing anyone else,” Xi said, bolstered by the fact that he’d been able to ask the p-question without stammering. “Other than me, that is.”

“No,” was the low, emphatic answer. “I don’t—like I said last night, I’m not, if that was how it was, I would have told you.” Jiong sounded a little angry now, but worried as well, worried in a way that soothed and flattered Xi in spite of his knowing that those emotions could be faked. Or, if not faked, used as a screen for a truth his partner felt too guilty or too entitled to admit. “Do you believe me?”

And, like Xi had been half expecting, half dreading, here was the tough bit. “I do,” he said, trying not to pay attention to the way Jiong perked up on hearing that. “Mostly.” There was no way to miss the way Jiong’s face fell then, even if he’d wanted to. “I—it’s not you,” and Xi was slightly shading the truth there, because Jiong’s ease at manipulation was definitely a factor, “it’s, well, I got cheated on, once, and it was…” enraging, humiliating, demoralizing, “…so I kind of have a shadow there.”

“Right,” Jiong said, his even tone and calm, understanding expression almost enough to convince Xi that he wasn’t upset by the lack of trust by proxy. The slightly stiff way he put down his fork gave him away. “That makes sense.”

“I also, um,” Xi began, because he was suddenly quite sure that if he didn’t air it now, he’d find excuse after excuse not to do so in future, “there was also this other bastard, who hit me—not during sex, by the way—and was a total and complete bastard emotionally, to me. So there’s that as well, as a reason.”

Silence. Xi couldn’t bear to look up from the screen and his own, almost empty plate for a long, long moment, caught between the old, irrational pulse of shame, and envy, envy that the problematic past Jiong was so nervous of seemed to mostly amount to having put his dick into one too many ardent groupies a decade or so ago. “So, so if I don’t—if it takes some time for me to fully trust you—”

“Xi,” Jiong said, coming around to stand beside Xi, his hand a comforting weight, first on Xi’s shoulder, then stroking down the hunched curve of his back. “It’s okay. I get it.” His voice was just a little hoarse, his tone restrained, and it really, it all really shouldn’t have made Xi feel like tearing up. “I’m sorry.”

“Shut up,” Xi grumbled, blinking hard, determined not to linger on this mortifying topic another moment. “I’m fine, it’s just. Well. Now you know, so…” Probably those curt words would have been more believable if he wasn’t still hunching a bit, and if he had been able to gin up the strength to try and shrug off Jiong’s comforting touch. “So, as far as, as Bai Bai’s intentions _now_ …”

“Far as I remember, he wasn’t in love or anything, back then,” Jiong said, his tone calm again. He hadn’t moved his hand away, had in fact transitioned to something that was almost a shoulder rub, his fingers kneading a smooth circle against Xi’s bare skin. “But the way things ended, I figure he was pretty pissed off. Embarrassed.”

“So it’s publicity, with a nice little side dish of revenge on the Star that got away?”

“Well, yeah, but…” His hands slowed their movements, deepening them. “I don’t know if… I might be imagining it, but. I just thought, when, last night, that video he handed in as proof?”

“Hm?” Under the increasingly satisfying assault of those fingers, which were seeking out and eliminating knots Xi hadn’t thought existed, Xi couldn’t muster much in the way of a response. “’M listening.”

“He picked you to challenge, on purpose,” Jiong said. “He was like that, I remember that much. Calculating. Definitely the sort to pick the easier target, which was you, in that context, on the face of it.”

“Hrgh.”

“Which means he’s not just likely out for my blood, but also for a bit of yours, as well. You know, considering.”

“Huh?” Jiong’s hands had finally lifted away, leaving Xi a little dazed as he rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck, pleased with the lack of kinks. “Considering what?”

“Considering that you won me over in the end,” Jiong said, slouching a bit as he edged back around to his empty seat. The arrogant ease with which he sat combined with the equally arrogant implication of those casual words, and for the first time, Xi could see in him the kind of proud, lawless young master that would have been an irresistible attraction to even someone as jaded as Xi had been back in his college heyday. “Don’t you think?” And just like that, the lawless young master’s mask had fractured a bit, the slightly wheedling undertone of his voice hinting at his insecurities. “Xi?”

“Hmph,” Xi said, cramming the last spoon of pork and rice into his mouth. The last thing he wanted was to end up being the kind of guy that rewarded this kind of half-pleading, half-spoiled behaviour. “Ahem. Fucking overestimating yourself.”

“Really?” Jiong, taking up his plate, deliberately scooted his chair around the curve of the table edge, bringing himself as close to Xi as possible. “You really don’t think I’m worth getting jealous over?”

“Fuck off.” Xi had been planning to say something cutting and witty about the heaven and earth discrepancy between Jiong’s two settled public personas—don’t think he hadn’t noticed the distinct lack of tildes and crying and cutesiness on Jiong’s part in the logs involving the groupies—but Jiong’s sudden closeness scrambled him. “I said _fuck off_.”

“Won’t Xi-er miss jiongjiong if he goes?”

For answer, Xi did his level best to try and elbow-shove Jiong out of his chair. It didn’t work—leverage and Jiong’s sheer solidity were both against him—but it was deeply satisfying.

* * *

After getting through that somewhat awkward breakfast, Xi felt far more confident about his ability to keep his chin up for the media. Still, when it came to the actual thing…

“Just got done fucking, did you?” “Hey, Mike! _Mike!_ Look, come on, just look—” “Any comment on the rumours, Mikey?” “Quote from the femme-y fatso, please?” “How’d it feel to go down on our Michael for the first time?” “Smile, just fucking smile!” “How do you think he stacks up against the rest, Mike? Be honest, now!” “Any comment on where you met?”

Even with all his experience streaming large and small events and participating in the intensely documented process of the Karaoke Regional Concours, Xi couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous in front of a proper camera swarm. And proper swarms were nothing like this—shouting, calling out to him, a clutter of different models and makes whirring in and out of his peripheral and frontal vision, clicking and flashing nonstop even as they transmitted the voices of their controllers over link.

“Oh come on, just a quote, just a quick statement!” “Taking him to work, Mike?” “Did he suck your cock last night, Mike?” “Any comment on the rumour that you’re retiring to get married, Captain Star?”

“I’m not planning to retire any time soon,” Jiong said, his hand squeezing Xi’s. The sudden, deafening silence that had descended the moment he opened his mouth was soon drowned out by a wave of furious flashes and feverish follow-up questions, all of which Jiong smoothly ignored, to add: “As for how we met, it was down the street from the team house, in a cafe.”

“Then, Mike—” “Which—” “—tell us—”

“That’s all this morning, or else I’m going to be late,” Jiong said, now towing Xi along at a slightly quicker walk. His hand was gripping Xi’s too tightly—probably, he was more nervous than his current, gently smiling expression made him look.

The storm of questions followed them down onto the subway platform, which was where Xi and Jiong had planned to part ways with a hug. Somehow, though, in the midst of the floating, beseeching cameras, under the puzzled or curious or disdainful gazes of various passersby, Xi couldn’t help but think of just how long the playoffs would last. Just how long it’d be before he could see Jiong again.

[XiErXi]: can I kiss you?

[XiErXi]: please?

For answer, Jiong stooped down a bit, his gentle smile gaining a genuine, slightly wicked edge, and then they were kissing amidst a torrent of excited flashes.

No tongue—couldn’t get too wrapped up, which they absolutely would, if they kissed open-mouthed—but it was still somehow devastating, the feel of Jiong’s warm mouth on his. For a long, stupid moment, even though Xi knew he had to step back, he couldn’t bear to.

[MrJiong]: see you in a week? After semifinals?

“Okay,” Xi murmured. “See you then.” God knew how they’d manage any kind of meeting, if this plague of cameras was still on their trail by then. “Have a good day, sweetie.”

Jiong smirked down at him, then bent in to press a hot, wet, taunting kiss to his cheek—he licked, he absolutely fucking _licked_ —and then stepped back, gentle, proper smile back in place. “You too, darling.”

And then he’d turned around and walked away, dragging approximately three-fourths of the cameras in his wake, all while Xi stood there flushing and staring after him, biting down the urge to curse at his back.

Darling? _Darling?_

[XiErXi]: who the fxxing hell is your darling ah??

It figured, it just fucking figured that the first time Jiong chose to call Xi such a normal endearment, he’d do it in front of what was probably half the tabloid gaming press. And of course he knew the kind of overreaction a restrained-looking person like him saying something like that would cause, because the only response Xi’s private raging received was:

[MrJiong]: [away message:] Xi-er~ jiongjiong is on a train with low signal okay~~~

“Wow, so intimate, are you guys already engaged?” “Can you comment on the rumour that you’re pregnant, Ling-ssi1?” “Ling-ssi, do you miss him already?”

“No comment,” Xi managed to say, with a smile, before heading for the platform where he’d take the train. He would just have to endure, he told himself. Revenge would be his by the end of the week, one way or another.

* * *

  1. **-ssi, 씨:** Korean suffix meaning Mr./Ms./Mrs. Used towards strangers, or towards people you’re formally interacting with.↩




**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taking a brief break now. Three chapters left~


	18. Xi’s respect for the gaming media: *iz ded*

A week and a half was more than enough time to kill off every last bit of Xi’s respect for the gaming media as a professional institution. They found, no, it was more accurate, more illustrative to say what they _hadn’t_ found.

They hadn’t found a link between Captain Michael Star and the much-despised MrJiong. They hadn’t found actual shots of Xi and Jiong’s fated meeting at Wild Rose Cafe, though they’d turned up a hefty amount of fakes and manips that they insisted were real. They hadn’t found any photos of the way Jiong had manhandled Xi in the toilets at the karaoke club after the big event was over—something Xi was sure was only due to the fact that any video footage in k-club bathrooms typically got junked within a few days for privacy reasons.

Everything else, though, was dragged out and gone over with a fine-toothed comb. Xi’s competition history, Xi’s previous little spats with fellow karaoke nerds and streamers, Xi’s long list of previous lovers, Xi’s fucking school records all the way back to the nasty reports he and Janey had got back in primary school… it was endless.

Xi marked time in a state of careful tension. Most of the stuff that was reported on him was old news, anyway, the seemingly dark things the entertainment media had busied themselves with exposing before as part of their laser-like focus on Janey, so that wasn’t what was bothering him. He wasn’t even bothered (much) by the way the gaming press had spontaneously decided that he and Jiong were secretly planning to get hitched, just based on that one brief exchange between them at the train station.

What _was_ bothering him was the fact that the furore didn’t look like it would be dying down in the usual way. The headlines about Xi’s entrapment of poor Captain Star had fallen in prominence, obviously, relegated to the section where secret team spats and reports of player so-and-so being on drugs resided. But they didn’t fucking stop coming; there was always a new item, a new shocking rumour, a new discovery.

Possibly it was all down to the fact that Xi had been streaming for so long, and had thus racked up all sorts of tangential connections and gotten involved in so many things. Just combing back through the last four years was already enough material for a few weeks of nonsense articles about how such-and-such a person had actually showed up in chat, or how it was rumoured that so-and-so had been to one of Xi’s supposedly infamous private parties. And before the last four years, there were his uni years, and all the messy entanglements therein.

God, how long had it been until now, if he counted all the way back to his first, terribly unprofessional try at streaming, the one where the sound had been flickering on and off, and the only person properly in frame had been the clearly nervous Bertram… They hadn’t yet been at uni, it’d been at least a year or so before that. And he had to deduct the few years that had been lost to that bastard Cameron and the process of recovering from his blight…

[jjcool]: @XiErXi @XiErXi miss me?

[XiErXi]: !! it’s alive!!!!

[jjcool]: haha… _:(´ཀ`」∠):_

[XiErXi]: hey, how long’s it been? Like, since our first stream?

By his count, it was something like a decade, but he wasn’t sure if he was over- or under-counting.

[jjcool]: you, you fucking traitor, you don’t keep count???

[jjcool]: bengong sees how it is, it looks like Star-nim’s wangfei1 doesn’t care about bengong’s matters anymore QAQ

[XiErXi]: …

[XiErXi]: do you have any shame????

[XiErXi]: your matters, what fucking matters, isn’t it all fucking solved by Sy’s sickening-sweet bullshit news???

As it turned out, Sylina was going to get married sometime this year, to not one but two filthy rich, endlessly amiable suitors, and the only reason she’d made time to swing by the karaoke event was because she’d recently been cutting back on her schedule to squeeze in more time to ‘get to know’ her future husband and wife. It was an arranged marriage, but they’d all known each other for some time, and got along well enough that when said future husband and wife had come to the bar to pick up Sylina that night, they’d all ended up screwing each other senseless in a nearby hotel.

You ask for evidence, heh, there was too much evidence, enough for the top tabloids to roll around in for days. Sylina and her future partners had made out on the way into the hotel, made out in the lift, made out in the room hallway, taken dirty pictures of each other in the room, recorded a drunken statement of their love, etc, etc, etc.

The most revealing stuff wasn’t posted _directly_ , of course, but breathlessly described by reporters that had been shown the images and vids by ‘a trusted source’, as if said same reporters hadn’t all been rushing out speculative articles about just how long Janey and Sylina had been entangled not one or two hours before the new twist had hit. Watching the whiplash-inducing change in the headlines would have amused the hell out of Xi if he weren’t still being plagued by a bunch of arseholes with no compunction about pointing the finger at his shitty marks in modern history.

[jjcool]: even so, hearing that Star wangfei doesn’t even remember how long it’s been, ah, it hurts bengong’s heart…

[XiErXi]: it’s ten years, okay!!! Ten years if I just count my shit, 26 if I count every unfortunate year since I first saw your fucking face

[jjcool]: ah…? [weeping] wangfei remembers, ah…

[XiErXi]: do you have anything of actual fucking use to say??????

[jjcool]: [cough] [cough] [cough], that’s right, almost forgot

[jjcool]: from what Erie tells me, it looks like Andy Bai’s team will be dropping something real soon

[XiErXi]: ………

[XiErXi]: QAQ

[jjcool]: it’s nothing to be sad about, ah, they’re not going to be daft

[jjcool]: they’ll most likely spin it all as bantering between old friends, that kind of thing

[jjcool]: Bai’s one of those that 100% don’t date, that kind of pure, ‘loving only work’ image, he’s not so senseless as to take a dump on it right as his new album comes out

[XiErXi]: what if he’s changing his image, though?

[XiErXi]: If the album’s a different style, think tortured, sensitive, so hurt + angry that he just can’t hold back, I bet his fans would eat it up

[jjcool]: [sweatdrop] um, in that case, you might want to stock up on supplies tonight and hole up for a bit…

[XiErXi]: ……fan-fucking-tastic

He’d tried not to worry too much about what was holding up the news about Bai making a surprise appearance on Xi’s stream a week and a bit ago. He’d inquired about it the only way he could, with polite feelers extended to BaiBeautiful, and then, when those went ignored, with a couple messages slung at Janey and Eric.

Eric had messaged back a couple days ago, apologetic as anything. _I asked everyone, and even Viktor got nothing back,_ Eric had said. _You might want to have Jane’s agent ask, I bet she could get something out of them._ And then Xi had had to sit on his hands and wait for Janey’s response, because the night before last had been her big, final concert, and even though he’d gone, she’d been so swamped that he’d known there wouldn’t be any time for even a minute to chat.

[XiErXi]: well, I guess this is how it’s going to be for the next two months

[XiErXi]: to think I actually thought it’d be you who was too hemmed in to do another live ( ಥ ╭╮ ಥ )

[jjcool]: come now, come now that’s no way to live [pat] [pat]

[jjcool]: xi-er, my good man, at times like this you embrace the crazy ah

[jjcool]: harvest the rage, ok~? Make _his_ crazy fans work for _you_

[XiErXi]: yeah, you say that, but, _which ‘he’_?

[XiErXi]: I’ve already, I mean, some crazy guys have already been warning me not to get in the way of Bai Bai’s love or whatever the fuck, but

[XiErXi]: there’s also this jiong fuck’s fans too…

[jjcool]: simple!!

[jjcool]: have your man _and_ the hussy call in!

[XiErXi]: jj, that’s, have you fucking forgot he’s in playoffs rn?

[XiErXi]: just chatting with him is like digging up a gd mountain

[XiErXi]: and do you really think that fucking Bai Bai will bother getting in touch if I reach out?

[XiErXi]: if he and his PR have any sense, they’ll just wait and cover me in shit

[XiErXi]: and anyone bringing up the issue of a challenge, or just saying we should talk it out can be scolded to hell

[XiErXi]: “you want our bai bai to stoop to that trash’s level?? keep dreaming!!”

[jjcool]: ah, um… [pat] [pat] [pat]

[jjcool]: it’ll all work out? (〃∇〃)?

[XiErXi]: …haha (눈_눈 )

Despite his deliberately dry response, Xi found himself chuckling a little, not relieved, but also no longer so tense. He knew exactly the kind of face Janey would be making at him if he was here, her eyes so wide that her forehead wrinkled a bit, her mouth in something like a pout and a smile at the same time, too cute for words if you didn’t know exactly who was behind that expression.

[XiErXi]: you should come down here, lol

[XiErXi]: share with me ah~

[jjcool]: lol nope

[jjcool]: such cheap press cameras, bengong doesn’t want to pick them up~~

* * *

Somehow, though Janey had so blithely refused to come down to Xi’s and share in his press-hounded misery, a few days later, she ended up doing just that, sneaking into his building through the actual fucking front door like the shameless, delightfully devious bitch she was.

Xi, mixing up his sixth batch of shortbread, didn’t think too much when he heard someone keying themselves into his flat. One of his aunts had come by last week to drop off high-grade flour and exchange treats, and had ended up chatting the ear off of one of the more easygoing tabloid cam operators after her visit. Aunt Abena was a five-time county baking champion, and she never let a chance to talk up her favourite flour mill slip by, not when it was run by a beloved friend’s cousin and always supposedly nearly on its last legs.

In any case, no one had posted photos of her, and the only result of her meandering conversation with the cam operator had been the flour mill getting a brief mention in the food section of the tabloid in question. His younger cousins and friends and family connections all knew better than to drop by during an active Press Situation, and of course his former group members wouldn’t show up unless it was an emergency. Xi was so sure that his visitor was another aunt that he called out, “just a moment, auntie, I’m in the kitchen.”

“Are you?” Janey said, from the shadows right behind him, and he almost put his foot through the nearest cabinet. “What, you didn’t see my message?”

“Fucking…” Xi hopped for a second, then stabilized, then turned around to glare, then couldn’t help but stare, open-mouthed, at the disguise Janey had cooked up. “You—you can’t have come in like _that_ …”

Smirking, Janey leaned back against the counter next to him, her short, messy hair still visibly damp, her large, cheap sunglasses and breezy maxi-dress combining with her rugged walking sandals to make her look quite like an idle young madam on holiday. She had barely any makeup on—lipgloss, and maybe some eyeliner—but she was still so recognizable to Xi that he couldn’t believe she’d got away with showing up. “I had a hat,” she said, tipping her head in the direction of the sunhat hanging on the coatrack of his door, then raising the convenience store bag she was holding. “And this.”

“Ice cream?”

“Ice cream.”

“ _Fuck_ , but I love you,” Xi said, leaning over to peer into the proffered bag. “Oh what the fuck, coffee?”

“It’s all they had, can’t blame me.”

“Fuck,” Xi muttered, but once the shortbread dough had been shut away in the fridge to chill, he easily accepted his own large tub, digging in pretty much immediately. “Fried yam2 okay, for later?”

“Definitely fine by me,” Janey said, her voice muffled around a hefty mouthful of ice cream. “Ah, ah, ah, I knew he’d do her, that fucking trash. Doesn’t he get tired of roles like this?”

The main screen in his cluttered, tiny living room had Janey’s current favourite drama on, as well as Janey’s current favourite actor looking around as he sneaked out of someone’s bedroom that he evidently wasn’t supposed to have been in. “You could stop watching, you know.”

“What, and miss seeing Ran-Ran in his only drama this year? No fucking way.” As the man onscreen got into a fancy car and drove away, only for the camera to pan over to the distraught face of the partner of the woman he’d just been with, Janey sighed. “He’s so nice in real life, too. That manager of his needs her fucking head checked.”

“You have to admit,” Xi said, after slurping down another chilly, delicious mouthful—coffee wasn’t his favourite flavour of this brand, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth eating— “he really does look like the type.”

“What type? What fucking type, huh?” Janey swallowed with an uncouth gulp, waving her spoon in his direction. “What can you even fucking say, when _your_ guy had an honest-to-god harem.”

Xi couldn’t hold back a gusty sigh. “You saw that?”

“Mm, I caught up on my way here,” Janey muttered. “You alright with it?”

“So long as he’s telling the fucking truth about his only seeing me right now, I’m alright with it,” Xi muttered back. “Fuck, even if he _isn’t_ telling the truth, I’d be all right with it, if that somehow meant they’d zero in on him and leave me alone for a bit.”

“That,” Janey said, her voice muffled again, “mm, ahem, I really think this time, you’ve just been unlucky. Slow news week.”

“But there’s their fucking playoffs, I don’t see why—oh no.”

“Omo, that…ahhh!!” Janey shrieked in surprise at about the same time he did, watching the sudden carnage onscreen, but even though her hand was a vice around his upper arm, she was most definitely not peering at the screen from behind a shaking hand the way Xi was. “Oh _no_.”

Ran-Ran’s character moaned, then cried out as he was hit again. Xi, catching sight of Janey’s rapt, excited expression, couldn’t keep back a brief grin. _As expected,_ he thought, sitting back a bit, _she’s into him because he willing to sign up for this kind of thing…_ The one commonality all of Janey’s beloved actors shared was the fact that the characters they played often ended up suffering prettily. “Well, I’d better get the yam started, I’ll leave you to it.”

“Mm, yeah, I’m fine. Fuck, that look like it hurt…”

“Should I leave you out of frame?”

“Huh? It’s that time already?” But she was already setting down the ice cream tub, her hands combing through her hair, settling it so it looked a little neater. “Fuck it. Put me in.”

Xi, even though he’d half suspected he’d hear something like that from the moment he’d seen Janey’s smug smile tonight, couldn’t help but feel a bit shocked. “Janey, you don’t have to—”

“What the fuck is the point of me if I don’t?” Confident as she sounded, she wasn’t looking at him, and though her gaze was trained on the scene of her Ran-Ran shivering in a dank-looking cell, she didn’t seem to really be seeing it. “I look alright like this, don’t I?”

“Yeah, but…”

“I didn’t retire so I could go on planning my every move,” Janey said, emphatically. “I want… I know it’ll be a long while before I can just, just walk down the street, and no one fucking cares, but this? This, I can, a stream’s nothing, right?”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

Janey nodded, her hands now kneading the fabric of the squashy sofa beneath her. “You don’t mind? I’m not ruining any plans, am I?”

For answer, Xi went right back over to her and pulled her into a quick, tight hug. “You would _never_.” Which wasn’t quite the truth, but felt enough like it to say so just now, and anyway Janey wasn’t so much a habitual plan ruiner as much as she was a meddler, a complicating factor. “Will you sing?”

A breath went by. “Can I?”

“You idiot,” Xi said, his voice alarmingly shaky. “Yes. _Obviously_. If you don’t mind not being paid a cent.”

“Aw, come on,” Janey said, as he let go of her, “you won’t even split the ad revenue with me? Huh? Hey!!”

“Now, Janey, this is why you negotiate _before_ the signing,” Xi said, loudly, trying and failing to repress a grin as he swept back toward the kitchen. “You’re on old terms, same as ever, food and board.”

“Ooh, I can stay the night? Wangye3 won’t be jealous?”

“What fucking jealous,” Xi muttered, as he headed to the fridge to grab the yam slices he’d had soaking in there. “Who told him to call me his fucking darling in the street…”

* * *

> Xmyrepenting: aiiiiiiiiiiieeeeee omg omg omg omg omg

> Fan C: ( ✧Д✧) OMG! ( ✧Д✧) OMG! ( ✧Д✧) OMG!

> [Fan ZZ is afraid they are dreaming!]

> Nameless God: ah, it’s xmy unnie? How’ve you been?

> Xmyrepenting: I… I’m great ＼（Ｔ∇Ｔ ）／

> Nameless God: good to know [smile]

> Fan ZZ: [roll] [roll] [roll] aahhhhhhhhhh

> newXi: uh, guys…? Why are you all going crazy?

> Nameless God: I’m J.E.M., Xi’s former groupmate [smile] [smile]

> newXi: [flabbergasted]

> newXi: …are you joking?

> Fan Aiya: oh my god, newXi, can you seriously not recognize her?????

> newXi: uh, yeah… I’m low-vision irl [sweatdrop] [smile]

> Fan Aiya: [deflates] ah, then, I guess that makes sense, especially since she hasn’t said anything out loud yet…

> newXi: ah, but, but, isn’t JEM on her final tour????

> newXi: how tf would she be here???

> Nameless God: ah, my child, the universe is full of many mysteries…

“Also known as, she’s doing a runner and hiding out at mine tonight,” Xi couldn’t help but say. “What, don’t look at me like that, isn’t that why you’re here?”

“Ahem,” Janey said, “it’s called taking a brief breather for the sake of my mental wellness. I don’t _run_ from my responsibilities as a light of this sad world.”

> newXi: aahahahahahahahhhh omggggggg

> [newXi is hyperventilating!]

> [Fan C is frantically messaging everyone they know!]

> [fkofe has joined the chat.]

> [sidestander has joined the chat.]

> [fkofe has renewed their subscription!]

> Fan Aiya: [crying] to think! To think that I almost skipped today’s broadcast and went out!!!

> [dayleets has joined the chat.]

> Xmyrepenting: ah ah ah the heavens are taking pity on my cursed life ah…

> [hail-on-me has joined the chat.]

> [hail-on-me has renewed their subscription!]

> [Fan D has joined the chat.]

> …

The login notifications changed from a trickle into a flood, spliced in with a rain of sub renewals and behind the scenes pleading for the ability to speak in chat that meant poor urakilla barely had the time to type out her own squee. Janey went into full-on smiley greeting mode, which just fed the frenzy even more, and left Xi smirking to himself as he drained away most of the salted water the yam had been soaking in.

Sure, she was retired _now_ , but he doubted she’d really refrain from doing any public activities for long. She’d slide into something else, stream on her own, maybe, and have fun riling up her fan base and making the entire singing streamer section curse her name at night.

> Nameless God: sing? Ah, but, bengong doesn’t feel like it~

> GodGod_U: hehe, isn’t it just that you can’t afford to play around and strain your voice?

> fkofe: ( ✧Д✧) FIGHT!! ( ✧Д✧) FIGHT!! ( ✧Д✧) FIGHT!!!!

> Nameless God: aiya, Eric, you haven’t changed at all

> Nameless God: wanting a fight so badly, haha, do you dare fucking step up and challenge me? [smile]

> fkofe: …

* * *

  1. **wangfei:** Chinese, the title given to the official wife of a **wang** , i.e. a titled prince or king.↩

  2. **Fried yam:** in this case, Xi is referring to the Nigerian dish of fried yam a la this recipe: <https://sisijemimah.com/2015/08/02/fried-yam-dundun-and-ata-dindin/>↩

  3. **Wangye:** Chinese, a title used to address or refer to a **wang** , which is the word for a king or prince.↩





	19. Eric: ( ✧Д✧) FIGHT! Janey: come here. Eric: [disappears]

> Nameless God: hmm? [eager eyes]

> Nameless God: not challenging, huh?

> [fkofe is pretending they saw nothing, heard nothing.]

> hail-on-me: kekeke still the same coward ah

> hail-on-me: I’ll dare, I’ll dare. I’ll challenge （≧▽≦）ゝ

> Nameless God: ah, hailey-chan wants to embarrass bengong [cry]

> Nameless God: bengong’s not so good with rapping ah [cry]

“You liar,” Xi couldn’t help but say, as he pulled out the bowl of salted, pre-chopped yam chunks in water from the fridge. “You weren’t a sub-rapper for your group for nothing, you know.”

> Nameless God: ah, but who’s even practised that stuff recently…

> hail-on-me: come on!!! face me like a woman ah!!1!!

> **hail-on-me has issued a challenge to Nameless God!**

> GodGod_U: well, if it’s gonna be like that [shifty eyes]

> **GodGod_U has issued a challenge to Nameless God!**

> dayleets: (╯≧▽≦）╯︵ ┻┻! Yes!!! OMGGG!!!!

> dayleets: the showdown of all my gods ah…….!!!!!!

“What showdown,” Xi said, one eye on the deep frying gear he was setting up, and one eye on Janey’s excited expression as she darted around his tiny living room, picking and choosing needless props for her impromptu performance. “Isn’t this just all three of them wanting to show off?”

> [Fan A is strongly expressing that showing off is good!]

> [dayleets is strongly expressing that showing off is natural!]

> [fkofe is excited to see who will embarrass themselves!]

> hail-on-me: hehe, JEM unnie can just put down all that stuff ah

> hail-on-me: I’m in the studio at Toya’s rn, not sure if unnie really wants to let me pick up some stuff to help me too?

> Nameless God: this shameless girl!!!

> Nameless God: truly bullying people ah [cry] [cry] [cry]

> GodGod_U: ok, ok, one prop for each person? Just one? Plus no lighting or effects?

> Nameless God: ah ah truly wanting bengong’s death ah

> hail-on-me: grow up! Aren’t you the one appearing with that empire-destroying face??

> Nameless God: hah?? if it’s my face that’s empire destroying, then what’s yours, huh???

> GodGod_U: …

> GodGod_U: GodGod requesting her dongsaengs1 to stop being so fucking modest [forehead vein pop]

> Xi-hungry: would you guys mind waiting till after I’ve got all the yam done?

> Xi-hungry: I don’t want to miss a second of this lol

> hail-on-me: accepted!

> [GodGod_U is staring at the deep fryer.]

> [Nameless God is rejoicing that they are right next to the deep fryer!]

> GodGod_U: you… [bites handkerchief]

> Nameless God: don’t you still live nearby? Why not walk down with some side dishes and help us eat [smile]?

> GodGod_U: lol, and be rumoured to be in a threesome with the two of you tomorrow?

> MySweetGodGod: hm, but, what if it was both of us? Wouldn’t it just be like couples visiting each other then?

> GodGod_U: Devi, think about what you’re saying

> GodGod_U: if we’re the couple, then who are Xi and Janey ah??

> GodGod_U: do you want that Star guy to die of anger?

> Nameless God: ah but, bengong doesn’t think Star wangye is the type to get angry over such a small thing

> Nameless God: speaking of who’s nearby, where the heck is Yuri?

> GodGod_U: she’s still at that conference, right? With B and the rest of their office?

> Nameless God: ohhhh, right, right

“Alright, you guys can amuse yourselves for a bit,” Xi murmured, now double-checking everything he needed for the big fry-up. Dutch oven and its lid, check. Frying tongs, check. Slotted spoon, check. Oil, check. Tray for the done bits, check. Drained yam pieces, check. “Ursula, are you and Devi really coming over?”

> MySweetGodGod: nah, turns out we have a bunch of pasta from last night still T_T

“Well, that’s good,” Xi muttered. “Barely have enough here for Janey and me as it is.”

> Fan Aiya: this…

> Fan Aiya: God Xi, this lowly fan was wrong. It’s still our Xi-er’s cruelty that’s the best [blush] [blush]

> Nameless God: hehe, isn’t it _just_?

> [GodGod_U is threatening to wash this channel in blood!!]

“Oh, pipe down,” Xi said, fighting not to smile. “You were always going to be crying over being left out tonight anyways; Janey being here makes no difference.” Ursula had always been a vehement lover of all things fried, and inviting her over tonight would just have been Xi dooming himself to fight over every last piece of yam with her and the bottomless pit that was Devi. “Alright, choose your songs or whatever, I’m starting.”

For the next little while, Xi paid only the slightest amount of attention to the stream chat; his primary focus was on getting the first batch of yam fried just right. Truthfully, the amount he was making tonight could probably have been stretched to three or four people if he’d roped in a few sides, but then that would mean no yam and egg breakfast tomorrow, and he’d been counting on that since he’d thought of frying anything.

Tonight’s meal was purely about comfort, something warm and crispy and salty to stuff down his gullet while he chatted to fans and watched some shitty show. Finishing off the rich, world-ending red sauce Aunt Abena had brought by last week was just the cherry on top; Xi could never bear to waste any of that stuff, and he’d already made a pasta bake and some sandwiches with it over the weekend. Using it as a dipping sauce would probably make her roll her eyes at him, but it was better than nothing.

“Time to get the stew out?” Janey said, from over by the fridge. “God, that smells so good…”

“It’s the red sauce in the patterned bowl. Should be in front.”

“Oh my fuck, is this Abena’s? Ahhh, the heavens smiling on me ah…” When Xi heard a suspicious thump from the living room, he looked over, only to see Janey rolling around on the ground, carefully hugging said patterned bowl, peppering it with loud kisses. “Heheh, in your face, B, jiejie will eat this all~!”

“B’s here?” A quick glance at the chat showed that Bertram was indeed present, and in rare form.

> God B: a curse on all your wretched ancestors!

> God B: stealing my auntie’s sauce, truly courting death!!

> God B: Xi, Xi, you promised [cry]

> God B: even making yam for her ah, wasn’t that supposed to be our lunch tomorrow ah

“I told you I wasn’t going to wait to use the sauce well before you headed out for the conference,” Xi said, struggling to keep back a smile. “And the yam was a whim, I didn’t even know she’d be here until she turned up.”

> God B: even so, laozi isn’t fucking resigned!!!

> God B: this wicked woman, always appearing whenever you make something good, ah, she really hasn’t changed!!

> [Fan D is begging God B to be calm!]

> God B: what calm, what fucking calm, just all you old fans listen well!

> God B: if laozi sees you cast a single vote for this evil woman, don’t blame laozi for stepping on you in future!!

Naturally, in the next moment, just as Xi was starting to test a piece from the third and last batch of yam, he heard the telltale noise of a food container being opened. “Janey, no.”

“Ehhh?” God, even without turning around to see her face, he could imagine the exaggerated innocence of her expression. “Don’t we need to warm this up?”

> **God B is beseeching the gods of this channel! Their holy prayer is:** DIE!!!! J.E.M.!!!!

Janey laughed. “You’re not the first to say that, and you won’t be the last,” she said, amidst the rustles and light footsteps that indicated she was probably getting back to her feet. “Doesn’t it make you feel it’s true that evil people live best?”

> Fan C: 100%!

> [newXi is fervently convinced!]

> mod_urakilla: if that’s what evil looks like, I want to be evil too _(┐「 ε :)_

> Xi-hungry: all done now guys

> Xi-hungry: song time~ song time~

> God B: even though that trash isn’t here… can Xi-er really bear to jiongjiong like this???

> [God B is enormously disappointed with Xi-hungry.]

“Sorry, sorry,” Xi said, as he began plating the hot, golden pieces of yam. “It’s just a habit, at this point.”

> God B: …QAQ

> [God B thinks that the integrity of this channel is doomed!]

> hail-on-me: so, so, who’s first??

> mod_urakilla: everyone can just roll, ah, no need to be polite [excited]

> Nameless God: hehe, one of you two can go first

> Nameless God: as you can see, bengong needs to eat well before it all gets cold~

> GodGod_U: ahhh!! Hailey, just sit for a minute, let me take her down first!!!!

And just like that, even before urakilla could foreground the correct sub-stream, the upbeat lead-in for Ursula’s chosen song began, followed by her lightning-hot opening lines. When her sub-stream finally popped up, the contrast between her explosive delivery and her appearance was disorienting; even seeing her lips moving in time with the rap didn’t help make it look any less like a lip-sync.

But the more she spoke, the more she interwove her smooth vocal line in between the bouts of rap, the more it was obvious it couldn’t be anyone but her. By the time she was winding through the arrogant, yet syrupy sweet vocal line of the bridge, the chat was in a frenzy, and the voting box pinned at the top was being bombarded with votes for her.

> Nameless God: UU unnie, you’re still such a fucking bully [cry]

> Nameless God: snatching the coolest Yera song just like that…

> GodGod_U: if evil empress doesn’t like it, can’t she just bully me back? [smile]?

“Hold my plate,” Janey said, around a mouthful of yam. “Wait, no, one more…”

“What fucking hold!” Yuri’s voice sounded crackly and indistinct due to her shitty hotel connection, but lost nothing of its unbridled anger. “Xi, Xi, how the fuck is she qualified to eat when she can’t even devote her full fucking attention to it?”

“Alright, _now_ hold my plate,” Janey said, swallowing audibly. She jammed her already half-empty plate vaguely in Xi’s direction, then lurched back to her feet as soon as he took it. “Fuck props, fuck it all, I’m gonna fucking destroy you.”

“Janey,” Xi said, as he set down her plate on the coffee table, “you do know that nothing is at stake in this.”

“All the more reason to fuck shit up,” Janey muttered. “Right, let’s see how you like this…”

> Fan C: O_o!!

> GodGod-mad: isn’t that fucking cheating??

> GodGod-mad: weren’t we just supposed to choose from pop songs??

> God B: haha.

> God B: this woman ah…

> Nameless God: bengong doesn’t remember our setting a genre limit~

> Nameless God: not using your weapons ah, it isn’t bengong’s fault~~

A quick scroll through the chat history proved that she was right—they’d insulted each other, flamed the songs of a certain group that someone had idly suggested picking from, and then spent the rest of the time boasting and riling each other up. Now, as Janey launched into an red hot performance of an old rap song that was a well-worn challenge staple, Xi couldn’t help but shake his head at Hailey and Ursula’s collective lack of foresight.

Outright cheating? Janey felt it to be beneath her, especially when she could always exploit the various loopholes left available to her through the carelessness of others. Competing with her when she was even semi-serious was like walking through a fucking minefield.

> dayleets: ah ah ah this dilemma ah…

> God B: hehe, dayleets-hyung, don’t even think about it

> dayleets: but…

> God B: laozi said don’t think, so don’t fucking think ah!!

Sadly, Bertram’s efforts were all for nothing; even when you subtracted those few old fans willing to give him face, there was still a tide of new, voiceless subscribers willing to pour vote after vote into Janey’s column. It didn’t help that she was currently doing a picture perfect box dance routine along with her sharp, merciless rap.

> hail-on-me: …

> hail-on-me: Jane, be honest, you practised for this, right???

Janey flashed a grin at the camera, but she didn’t let it, or anything else, mess up her tempo. For the next minute or so, just from looking at her, you could imagine that she was onstage, and there was nothing in the world but her voice, the beat, the steps, and the music. But all good things came to an end, and so the imaginary stage became the tiny square of free space in between Xi’s coffee table and the wall with the main screen, and the dancing devil was once again his oldest friend, laughing, sweating and picking at the skirt of her maxi dress.

> Nameless God: wah, it’s so flattering to see you all voting for bengong’s poor performance

> God B: (ｏ`皿′ｏ)

> Xmyrestored: [kowtows]

> Xmyrestored: can’t afford to vote, so all I can do is bow ah ah ah ah ah

> [Fan Aiya is following Xmyrestored and bowing down!]

> [Fan C is following Xmyrestored and bowing down!]

> [dayleets is following Xmyrestored and bowing down!]

> God B: ……

> [God B is desperately wishing they could go up and wash away this farce with a performance of their own!]

> Nameless God: aigoo, such a shame you’re on hell’s own connection ah

> Nameless God: bengong wouldn’t be afraid of your challenge [smirk]

> [God B is threatening to wash this channel in blood!]

“Hey, hey, don’t forget,” Hailey said, her low, smug voice cutting in across everything as her sub-stream was fed in, “there’s still one challenger left.”

“Oh, perfect,” Janey said, sitting back down on the couch, “just what I was missing, a nice little show to eat to.”

The chat spun up in response to that, excited exclamations mixing in with gleeful declarations that oh, J.E.M. was just _too much_ , too disgustingly cruel, their hearts couldn’t take the strain, etc etc. Hailey’s substream floated to the forefront, a blank, mysteriously dark screen the only thing on offer; meanwhile, certain parties began arguing over whether Janey’s first serious acting role should be that of a wicked imperial consort, a scheming modern-day mistress or an alluring demonic cultivator.

[jjcool]: lol what are they all smoking

[jjcool]: me, acting? when I literally just quit after getting sick to death of currying favour and scheming until my hair started falling out?

[jjcool]: keep fucking dreaming!!

[XiErXi]: you’ve really no interest?

[jjcool]: look, a side role like the ones I’ve had is one thing

[jjcool]: no one expects much, just appearing is enough

[jjcool]: trying for real roles, hahaha, no fucking thanks

“So, I was thinking,” Hailey said, from her still-dark screen, “since we’re each allowed a prop…” The screen brightened, revealing the slightly messy confines of what looked like a practice room, replete with mirrors, dance-friendly flooring, and—because Hailey obviously couldn’t help herself—three other members of SM-UNI, all decked out in casual exercise clothes, all grinning like they were in on a massive joke. “How about this lot, for a prop?”

“Do you have no fucking shame?” Ursula cut in, her voice slightly tinny with excitement. “I count one, two, _three_ people, and that’s even if a person can—”

“We only said ‘a prop’,” Hailey interjected. “We didn’t set any limits, and you know, it’s, um, it’s half my group, and I think that should count as one prop, as a whole.”

“Bullshit,” Janey said, with a shark-like grin. “But you know what, I’m in a good mood, I’ll allow it.”

Possibly, the chat would have rioted if she hadn’t; Xi could see that the viewership was spiking beyond what was anywhere near reasonable for a low-profile variety stream at this time of night, and the only reason chat was even readable was because urakilla and the just-logged-in mod_z had turned off new subscriber notifications. “For anyone new here,” Xi couldn’t help but say, “I want you all to know this is _not_ what a normal stream of mine looks like, this is anarchy, and you should probably get a bloody refund of your sub once it’s over, because—mmph!”

“No one listen to him,” Janey said, plaintively, even as she struggled to keep her hand over his mouth. “Stick around, it’s—it’s guaranteed to keep—Xi, you can’t kick me!”

“Put a sock in it, both of you,” Hailey said, her voice wavering with suppressed laughter. “This is _my_ challenge, yeah?” And before Janey or Xi or anyone else could say anything else, the song she’d picked was starting, its mellow intro matched by the slow, casual settling of Hailey and her group members into a loose formation mostly centred on her.

It was soon apparent that, much as Hailey had stretched the rules of the challenge, she didn’t intend to violate them completely. Her group members seemed perfectly content to be weirdly aesthetic background singers with a penchant for eerily synchronized, rippling movements. Even in the practice room setting, Xi could all too easily imagine them twisting and turning just that way in an MV, all while the scenery around them switched between bizarre undersea environments, there was just that kind of flavour to their moves.

And Hailey’s rap was, well… probably this song was her real cheat. Smooth, easy vibes, a tropical flair, not one bit of it too heavy on the ears, the vocal line of it contrasted sharply with the hard-hitting rap line. It was one of SM-UNI’s older songs, one that hadn’t done all that well as part of their second (or was it third?) album, and somehow Hailey made it blind the ears with its shine. She’d only been responsible for about half the rap parts, originally. Group balance, fairness, sharing the spotlight so everyone could have their turn beneath it, all of those had limited her.

As the chat went wild at the end of the song, though Xi was smiling, he could also not help opening up an old, seldom-used private chat:

[XiErXi]: @hails2me is everything okay with your group??

[XiErXi]: i mean, obvs you’re doing okay enough with Lidi, Sayyid and Farrah that they’ll back-dance for you but

[hails2me]: uh, [cough] [cough], Xi-er, um, you know this is just stealth promo right?

[hails2me]: new tour kicks off next wk

[XiErXi]: ohhhhhhhh

[hails2me]: ah ah ah you’re too sweet for this world, too caring ah

[hails2me]: even after we tried to poach Jane back then…

[XiErXi]: well, it’s not like you succeeded, so [smile]

[XiErXi]: so everything’s alright?

[hails2me]: hannah and the blockhead have a cold and a family semi-emergency respectively, or they’d be here bowing rn

[hails2me]: though we should prolly make sure PR knows to guard against that kind of conspiracy theory, lol

[hails2me]: if you can think of it our fans will too

Said fans had also seemed to mobilize en masse, because Hailey’s voting column was being shoved so high that it was starting to look out of proportion with Ursula’s and Janey’s own, fluctuating columns.

> God B’s Big Grin: hehehe, @old-fan-traitor-grp I bet you’re regretting right now

> God B’s Big Grin: betraying so uselessly, only to see nothing as rewards, *smh*

> hail-on-me: thanks for the votes guys [wave]!

> hail-on-me: there’s really something satisfying about winning with your own song ah…

> GodGod_U_U: what fucking own song ah!!! Didn’t hannah write most of it with Sayyid??

> GodGod_U_U: this trash rapper licking up praise for spouting someone else’s verses ah, unnie won’t forgive!

> hail-on-me: ara, do I smell another challenge? [smile]?

> Nameless God: bengong wouldn’t mind accompanying you all in playing around some more, but

> Nameless God: bengong still has ice cream to eat oh~

> GodGod_U_U: who’s talking to you!! eat, eat, eat till you swell up and die!!

> **GodGod_U_U has issued a challenge to hail-on-me!**

> hail-on-me: hihihi, freestyle?

> Xi-full: just as long as you keep it short, I’m good

> Xi-full: gonna sign off in the next half-hour, I think

> Fan ZZ: shortbread???

> Xi-full: I’m knackered, I’ll do it tomorrow

> God Yuri: what ZZ is too timid to ask is um, shortbread raffle??

> Xi-full: I promised most of it to all our aunts and uncles, they’re having a thing this weekend

> God Yuri: ah but, like that there won’t be any for us

> God B’s Big Grin: yeah, Xi, those greedy old people won’t leave any

> Xi-full: there should be a dozen left over after my share, how about you two split that?

> [God Yuri is ecstatic!]

> God B’s Big Grin: Xi-er, truly a friend [heart] [heart]

> Fan ZZ: WTF!! isn’t this nepotism right in front of our faces???

> [hail-on-me is nodding fiercely in agreement!]

> [GodGod_U_U is nodding fiercely in agreement!]

> fkofe: hehe, XiXi, don’t just give the shortbread out like that

> fkofe: raffle them off to all of us, okay?

Even as Eric said that, someone donated enough to pin up an auto-raffle—something Xi had totally forgot was even a thing you could do, since his fans normally didn’t spend so recklessly. Unfortunately, even as the fans in chat wildly approved this bold manoeuvre, Xi was narrowing his eyes at the admin-only message the auto-raffle’s creation had generated.

 **MrJiong has dedicated a private offering to the Forest God. Their prayer is:** Xi-er, Xi-er, leave some for me?

* * *

  1. **dongsaeng:** Korean, means ‘younger brother’ or ‘younger sister’, usually used to refer to someone younger than you that you have a good relationship with↩





	20. MrJiong: Xi-er~~ Xi: …a ghost???

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter for the night... /o\

Looking at that extravagant little message, from someone Xi had seen neither hide nor hair of since their fateful, much-publicized kiss on the train platform, Xi felt… Xi felt…

[XiErXi]: @MrJiong are you high???

[MrJiong]: …QAQ

[MrJiong]: how to live on, emperor doesn’t love this old servant’s gifts, wuwuwu

“What’s going on?” Janey had engaged a quick and dirty sound dampener on the camera that was trained on them, using her old, never-removed access. “You look a bit…”

“I’m fine,” Xi said, though he really, really, really wanted to burst into ugly, angry, grateful, stupid tears. This was _so_ … he hadn’t even known how worried he’d been, deep down, that somehow, all of the petty, negative things the gaming tabloids kept eagerly digging up on him would put Jiong off.

It was irrational to think that Jiong would mind any of Xi’s ancient beefs with k-streamers, or that Xi had been disciplined for fighting more than anyone else in his peer group in primary school. It was irrational to worry about it, so Xi had told himself he couldn’t, and told himself that Jiong was really truly busy rather than ghosting him, but even so…

“This jiongjiong fuck,” Xi muttered, one eye on the camera’s still sound-dampened status, one eye on that taunting private offering message. “It’s like he wants to be fucking caught.”

“Ehh? Did he not do it as, um—”

“Obviously not!” Xi was flushing horribly, and even though he knew it wouldn’t show on his dark skin, he knew Janey could tell. The way she was eyeing him right now, there was no way he was not going to be teased to death after the stream was over. “Moron probably didn’t even read through the rules, only the first fucking message is guaranteed private, once the raffle actually starts, his stupid name will be on everything. And that’s not counting the fact that he opted for allowing buy-ins, everyone’ll hate that.”

Indeed, after the initial burst of approval, some of the chat had begun to discover the fly in this graciously provided ointment.

> newXi: this… isn’t this raffle kind of pitted?

> newXi: no ticket refunds if you buy extra but don’t win

> Fan Aiya: brother newXi, that’s the standard ah

> dayleets: can the mods maybe turn off buying in, so it’s a bit more fair?

> Fan C: ah, not this kind

> Xmyrestored: yeah, only the person that bought up the raffle can control that stuff

> fkofe: doesn’t this mean it’s just a whale battle??

> fkofe: QVQ this whale is small ah…

> GodGod_U_U: and no telling how many others have sneaked in, you guys know we’re front page, right?

> GodGod_U_U: all these evil people coveting our family’s shortbread (￣Д￣；) [worried.jpg] [anxious]

> hail-on-me: hehehe, if it’s just whaling, don’t you have a nice big backer to prop you up? hmmm? @MySweetGodGod

> MySweetGodGod: [bites handkerchief] haven’t you guys noticed yet??

> MySweetGodGod: that dirty mr fly is logged in ah…

> Xmyfrightened: fuck!!!!

> edee-dee: no!!! my chance at shortbread ah, flying away _:(´ཀ`」∠):_

> sidestander: is mr fly really that big?

> mr fly: hehe, maybe

> [God Yuri is rejoicing!]

> God B is dying: but… what about my shortbread…

> [God B is dying is beseeching God-Emperor Xi to be merciful!]

> phiii: …

> phiii: you know how pathetic it is, asking the forest god to whale for you, right??

“I can’t let this go on,” Xi muttered, even as he scrolled through the options clustered around the forcefully proposed raffle. “Last thing I want to do is leave all the mess this’ll cause to urakilla once I sign off, it’s not even her usual day in rotation…”

“But you’re still going to send wangye some treats, right?” Janey said, nudging him with the side of her arm. “Right? Right? Right?”

> Fan C: all that aside, hasn’t it been too quiet all this time??

> hail-on-me: look, this shortbread is more important than a rap challenge, ok?

> hail-on-me: UU doesn’t mind postponing our challenge to another day, right?

> [GodGod_U_U lets out a noncommittal grunt.]

> MySweetGodGod: baby, don’t be mad T_T

> MySweetGodGod: unnie will get shortbread for you ok?

> Fan C: I didn’t mean you guys, I mean our Xi-er!!

> Fan C: just what are he and JEM discussing????

> newXi: ???

> newXi: Can’t see details, troubling C-noona to tell me??

> Xmyfrightened: they’re huddling! Smiling! Whispering with the camera sound off!!!

> Xmyfrightened: if this noona didn’t know better, noona would think, heheh [blush]

> fkofe: yeah, yeah, just what are you guys doing~

> MrJiong: Xi-er, Xi-er, you can’t cheat QAQ

> MrJiong: can be angry, can look down on my gifts, but absolutely can’t cheat QAQ

Xi, just about to launch into a calming explanation after turning the sound back on, couldn’t help but freeze. _Did he just…_

> Fan D: cheat?? cheat on who, you????

> Fan Aiya: jiong-hyung-nim, there’s no need to burst out like this just because Xi-er’s boyfriend turned out to be that high up

> Fan C: wait, wait, does that mean jiong-hyung bought the raffle?

Xi covered his face with both hands, not caring that he was in frame, and that everyone would see him doing it. This was… just what the fuck was tonight, huh? Curses coming hand in hand with blessings?

> Nameless God: huhuhu, bengong made the right decision to drop in tonight

> Nameless God: so much drama to watch [wicked grin]

> hail-on-me: drama? hmm? [excited]

> Fan Aiya: it’s more tragedy than drama ah

> newXi: yeah, jiong-hyung’s a weird whale lol

> newXi: stopped talking in chat when Xi got with @starmike

> hail-on-me: ohhhhh?

> Fan C: and I guess now he’s gotten a bit, uhh

> MrJiong: it’s not how it looks like…

> Nameless God: heheheheheheh

> God B is dying: …

[jjcool]: if I were you or him, I’d just rip mask right now

[jjcool]: surely _someone_ will dig up the jiong/mike connection after tonight

[XiErXi]: is it weird that I don’t want to?

[XiErXi]: imagining the headlines about his crazy method of selling meng is killing me QAQ

[jjcool]: what’s he saying about it?

Well… There was a reason Xi hadn’t yet moved his hands away from his face. Jiong’s minimized window had been lighting up with notifications in the corner of his HUD every now and then, but he couldn’t yet bear to open it up. He wanted an apology, and he didn’t want one, and he wanted to hear Jiong’s low, apologetic tone just as much as he wanted to curse at Jiong out loud. He wanted playoffs over already, so that he could burrow back into the circle of Jiong’s strong arms and never come out.

He was probably in love, and he _did not want to be_ , because sex and friendship and casually liking each other was easier. He did not like the way his brain twisted and magnified everything when he was in love. He’d loved—he’d let himself wrap all the way around two people, and both of them tore him apart.

 _Wake up, Xi,_ he told himself, coldly. _Ruining your night’s one thing; you can’t let him ruin your stream._

> **Xi-full has cancelled the holy raffle.**

> Xi-full: sorry guys, shortbread nepotism is a go [smile]

> Xi-full: Yuri and B and my aunts and uncles are getting it all, and that’s final

> Fan Aiya: ahhhhhhh [cry]

> Xi-full: come on, I told you I wasn’t baking it for you guys to begin with

> God B revived: Xi-er is best~ Xi-er is best~

> MrJiong: !!!!!

> MrJiong: copying this hyung-nim’s chatting style, B-hyung has no shame, huh???

> God B revived: shame? what’s that?

> God B revived: can it be eaten? [big eyes blinking.jpg]?

“Exactly, right?” Janey said, her voice muffled by the yam she’d stolen from Xi’s nearly empty plate. “My dad always said, y’know, good food and shame don’t mix.”

> God B revived: who asked you ah!!! shameless!!!

> MrJiong: …

> fkofe: lolol, this jiong hyung, you haven’t been following God Xi for long right?

> fkofe: follow a little longer and you’ll know the true nature of all these wicked gods, tsk tsk, every one of them is shameless

> MrJiong: *mumble* it’s not that jiongjiong doesn’t know

> MrJiong: it’s just… it’s Xi-er’s channel, his shamelessness is always good, but other people? hmph!!!

> Nameless God: [blink] hmmmm? Is it no good for jiejie to be shameless here too?

> Fan C: jiong-nim…… your brain hole1 is truly something ah…

> Fan Aiya: truly something +1

Xi could no longer put off looking at his private chat. He skimmed—kowtow emojis by the truckload decorated the last screen’s worth of messages, outnumbered only by Jiong’s favourite crying emoji. So far, there didn’t seem to be anything actually worth reading, any kind of explanation or apology for wantonly spilling the beans and also choosing to do that rather than just send a goddamn private message to say hi like a normal human being, so…

[XiErXi]: shut up!!!!!!!!

[MrJiong]: …

[MrJiong]: Xi-er will still talk to me? T_T

[MrJiong is rejoicing at their good fortune!]

“Yeah, I think I’ll sign off right now,” Xi said, annoyed that he didn’t have to struggle to put up a convincing smile. “It’s not been quite a half hour, but, like I said earlier, I’m tired, so I’m turning in.”

> sidestander: !!!!

> Fan D: this… jiong-hyung, you!!! Couldn’t you just keep quiet??

> [Fan Aiya is shaking their head over the situation.]

> newXi: driving the god off like this, can you just stop bothering him?

“Guys, you’re really overthinking it,” Xi hastened to say. After all, if the press still somehow managed to fail to stumble on the link between MrJiong and Mike, he didn’t want Jiong to have to weather the other fans’ mockery and isolation unfairly. “If he was a problem, I’d ban him, alright? You know I’m not the type to tolerate that shit.”

“Of course, when it’s coming from one very singular man,” Janey said, leaning in next to him dramatically, “it’s, well, it’s a different story, isn’t it?”

“Say bye to J.E.M., everyone,” Xi said, without looking at her. “Seeing as it’s definitely the last time she’ll appear on here.”

Janey, in response, turned her big brown eyes on him, and said, in a tremulous tone: “Star wangfei has gotten so ruthless, ah. Bengong can’t help but admire it.” But the wronged expression on her face gave the lie to her supposed compliment, turning it into a complaint. “Will you really drive bengong away?”

“Yep,” Xi said, as brightly as he could. “To the kitchen with you, you’re going to help me do the dishes. Ta everyone, good night!”

That determined final greeting begat a chorus of goodbyes in chat, mixed in with more useless marvelling about Janey’s acting ability, as well as protests seeking for the stream to go on a little longer, for the raffle to be reinstated, or even for Hailey and Ursula to quickly do their challenge. After a moment or two of waving and smiling from both him and Janey, the camera’s working light went off, and it swam over to settle in its usual spot atop the console underneath the living room screen.

“You okay?” Janey said, her formerly bright smile already gone. “You’ve been a bit…”

“I’m in love,” Xi said, jerkily, already on his feet. “I’m _fucked_.”

Janey said nothing, but she followed him into the kitchen, dragging him into a quick, hard sideways hug as she passed him with her now-empty plate. “What can I help with?”

“Leave the pot with the oil to me, but everything else can go in the dishwasher.” But even as he started to move towards said pot, a link voice chat request had pushed his chat with Jiong to the top of the list, and Xi couldn’t help but freeze. “Um, I—just a sec, he’s calling.”

Janey, wide-eyed, waved at him to take it. He didn’t want to, not in front of her, but he also couldn’t bring himself to run off right away because that would only give her something to tease him to death with. Then: “Oh, clear out, will you? Go whisper all your sweet sweet nothings.”

Now, if he stayed here, she’d _definitely_ listen in and _definitely_ go out of her way to tease him. Scowling, Xi retreated from the kitchen, his nerves going into overdrive as he walked. Pulling a face at Janey before the kitchen door whispered shut didn’t help his nerves. Pacing back into the living room, and then all the way into the bedroom, because the door was decently soundproof, _also_ didn’t help his nerves. Accepting the link request didn’t help.

“Xi-er, I’m so sorry.”

“Not if you’re calling me that, you’re not,” Xi murmured, his eyes half-closed, the frightful tension that had taken him over towards the end of the stream suddenly somewhere else. Fucking love-induced endorphins, conspiring with that fucking voice. “What were you thinking?”

“I thought I’d have the time to chat with you a bit, tonight, and I did, but only just.” Even now, Xi could hear the tapping and clicking of a keyboard and mouse, a faint, almost soothing counterpoint to Jiong’s low voice. Somehow, it seemed perfectly natural that he’d be the type to use old-school peripherals while gaming. “You know I don’t like to bother you while you stream.”

“Liar.”

“Well really, it’s more that I’m, I’m trapped in the team room, there’s no way I can wank along with you, so…”

Ordinarily, Xi would have rolled his eyes and said something sarcastic, or perhaps even given in to a helpless laugh. Just now, though, the only words that came to him were all plaintive, stupidly accusing. _Is that all you want from me?_ “Right.” _Am I just a fucking phone sex line to you?_

“Xi?”

“Can you just fucking call me, next time?” His voice was a little shaky, but hopefully not so much that it was obvious he was really upset. “Just hearing you is enough.”

“Really?”

“Yes! I literally just said it was!”

“Yeah,” Jiong said, and it was, it should have been enraging how shy he made that one word sound. “Okay, that’s noted.”

Xi shook himself, thinking, _normal, normal, back to normal_. “Your first playoff match is tomorrow, right?”

“Unfortunately, yeah.”

“Well, do your best, yeah? I’ll be watching.”

“Really?”

“Alright, that’s it, I’m hanging up.”

“No, no, wait, I didn’t mean—” Cutting off Jiong’s slightly breathy, _definitely_ laughing voice right then sent a surge of satisfaction through Xi. It wasn’t like he didn’t deserve it, replying so teasingly when it had already been thoroughly established that Xi had been religiously following Dom-V’s games, or at least keeping pace with their match scores, pretty much since their first in-person encounter at the cafe.

Xi didn’t talk about that sort of thing with anyone but Jiong, and even then, he did so in a fleeting, casual manner. He didn’t care what the standings were, except where it would affect Jiong’s mood, much like Jiong rarely mentioned Xi’s stream rankings except to tease Xi for placing unusually high, or to complain that so-and-so had most definitely cheated to come in higher than _Xi’s Sweet, Spicy Home_ this time.

“Well?” Janey’s voice came in over the seldom-used in-home messaging system. “Was wangye very jealous?”

“What wangye,” Xi muttered, as he walked out of the bedroom. His private chat with Jiong was already filling up with more of those worthless kowtow emojis. “What fucking jealous, he didn’t even mention you.” Which was probably a good sign, considering how very suspicious that bastard Cameron had always been of how close Xi was with Janey. There was no reason at all to feel even a little bit miffed that the topic hadn’t come up. “Anything broken yet?”

“Don’t be insulting,” Janey said, her voice echoing strangely now that he could hear her in the kitchen as well as through the in-home system. “I was the dish bitch, growing up. The day I break anything of yours—”

“Yeah, yeah, the world ends, got it.”

“Did he say anything about the jiong thing?”

Xi, just about to start decanting the used oil from the pot into the usual container for it, had to struggle not to spill a swathe of it across the counter. “Fuck!”

“You all right?”

“Yeah, I’m just—fuck, fuck, fuck, I fucking forgot to ask.” He tipped the pot a little more, feeling stupid, feeling horribly on the spot. Any moment now, Janey would clue in and ask him, in that irritating, syrupy-sweet voice of hers, just what exactly he had had to say to ‘wangye’ apart from the quite serious PR question on having MrJiong and starmike linked, and no matter what Xi said, she would _know_. She would know Xi had got sappy and clingy and stupid, and fuck, fuck, _fuck_ , she was looking at him. “ _What_?”

“You do know you can, um, you can just ring him back up, to ask?” A look in Janey’s direction showed a genuinely perplexed expression on her face, which was so not what Xi had been expecting that he looked away from her immediately. “Xi, seriously, you’re kind of—”

“I’m all right.” He knew he didn’t sound all right, so he set the empty, oily pot back down on the counter as gently as possible, and he took a deep breath, and another before saying: “If I call him back, he’ll win.”

Janey turned to him, her mouth half open, her expression something between astonished and thrilled. “Win?”

“He’s terrible,” Xi said, closing the used oil container with a little more force than necessary. “He laughs at me, and he is exactly that embarrassing, offline. I swear to god, if you ever bring up all that ‘wangye’ bullshit to him—”

“Too late not to,” Janey said, grinning as she bent to give the plates and bowls and things in the dishwasher one last inspection. “Pretty sure I said it on stream, and he _was_ watching, wasn’t he?”

“Argh.”

“You know, you can let him have it just this once,” Janey said, as she shut the door of the dishwasher. “Seeing as he had to watch the two of us eating all that scrumptious yam.”

“But I can’t just keep letting him, I mean, he has to know that there’s a line,” Xi muttered. “I’d never get any peace, otherwise.” But he had already reopened his private chat with Jiong, debating inwardly over just how important it was that he stay abreast of the PR situation. It surely couldn’t be _that_ much of a draw, finding out that the smooth, handsome, playboy-turned-serious image of Michael Star could be directly linked to an ID that was, haha, not like that at all… “Fuck it, fuck asking, fuck him.”

“If that’s what you want,” Janey murmured, patting the now rumbling dishwasher. “Ice cream?”

“Mm, yeah, why not.”

* * *

In the end, Janey didn’t stay the night. Seeing her off at the camera-encrusted back door was a familiar experience, him waving her off from the darkened hallway as she sauntered off, Maxwell to her left, Yang in front, and Lara bringing up the rear. She went away with a hefty, divided tin of still-warm shortbread and the last of Aunt Abena’s custard creams because Xi was a weakling at heart, and he knew her bodyguards would appreciate it.

Only a handful of the cameras bothered to linger behind to catch a glimpse of him, and they were none of them so dedicated as to try and brave the small but potent electronics dead zone between his building’s back door and the gate that led out onto the street. So Xi waved one last time (Janey’s personal cam usually caught it) and retreated back into the dim, silent hallway, feeling an odd mixture of relief and regret.

An hour ago, Jiong had finally stopped spamming him, and had signed off with a mix of his usual fake tears and a hurried reassurance that his team’s PR was well aware that he’d outed his other identity tonight.

[MrJiong]: so Xi-er, Xi-er, sleep well and don’t worry~~

[MrJiong]: with you cheering tomorrow, jiongjiong will definitely win~

“Huh,” Xi said, on reading those last two lines for the fourth, or perhaps fifth time. “Disgusting.” He hardly knew whether he was referring to Jiong’s usual sentiment, or his own terrifying partiality for such displays.

* * *

  1. **brain hole:** colloquial Chinese expression used to describe someone’s delusions↩




**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now that I'm all caught up to the meme chapters, I'm probably going to end up posting a side story chapter or two sometime next week while I work on the last one or two chapters of the main story. Will decide later whether to just post the side story in one place or if I should forcibly include it in along with the main story.


	21. jiongjiong heard you made shortbread, ah, jiongjiong wants to see it [shy]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone not following this on FFA, it might be a bit abrupt to learn that this is the last chapter of the story. But it is, and though I wrote a 'happy for now' rather than the traditional 'happily ever after', I hope you still find it an enjoyable read :D

The next morning, everything that came up on a search of Xi’s name was squashed down by Janey’s trending midnight adventure. That she had left his flat at or shortly after midnight seemed to be the only thing required to call it that, despite her having obviously lounged around streaming with him all evening well before that time.

Hailey and SM-UNI were trending as well, their searches a mix of fervent praise and bitter complaints that they’d neglected to signpost their participation onstream in the unofficial fan calendar. A new MV of the song Hailey had performed was demanded. A point-by-point evaluation of every little thing Hailey had said during the stream was held up as evidence that she was either planning to go permanently solo soon, or was trying to break up the group, or was getting too big for her britches, all with a side of her trying to throw shade at Hannah, the group’s secondary rapper.

Shaking his head, Xi browsed through the entertainment feeds while he gobbled down breakfast—cold yam and fried eggs and the last of that lovely sauce, and best of all, he didn’t have to share it with anyone. Though, if he’d had to—he couldn’t help but think back to the fraught breakfast he’d shared with Jiong in his stupidly empty flat—he was sure he’d have coped somehow. Pancakes? Or, simpler still, the rest of the eggs, rather than just three of them, along with some chopped veggies?

[MrJiong]: Xi-er, Xi-er, save me [cry]

[MrJiong]: nutrition shakes again ah… QAQ don’t want to live

[XiErXi]: …wasn’t it you who wanted to see what I was eating? [smile]?

[MrJiong]: [river of tears.jpg]

[MrJiong]: [dying.jpg]

“Mmm,” Xi said, moaning exaggeratedly around his last mouthful of fluffy, tender scrambled egg, “ _so_ perfect.” He couldn’t help but smirk when the camera, which was once again under Jiong’s control, pointedly turned away from him and his now nearly empty plate. “Are you sure you even have time to waste on this?”

[MrJiong]: everyone looks half-dead this morning anyway

[MrJiong]: plan is to head for the stadium at noon, and I’m not even sure everyone will be 100% ready by then

[MrJiong]: and look, jiongjiong worked hard enough this week, jiongjiong needs to look at Xi-er’s face to recharge, okay?

“Then why the heck do you have the cam noodling around in my kitchen?”

[MrJiong]: …

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong heard you made shortbread, ah, jiongjiong wants to see it [shy]

[XiErXi]: hahaha just fucking forget it

[XiErXi]: someone told on me to my aunts, I literally just got off link with one of them scolding me for giving away some of their share

[MrJiong]: ah… but… Orz

[XiErXi]: I’ll make another batch for you later okay?

[XiErXi]: I can bring them with me tonight

[MrJiong]: !!!

[MrJiong]: you’re definitely coming, then?

[XiErXi]: yeah, I snagged a ticket a while ago

[MrJiong]: Xi-er…

[XiErXi]: for fuck’s sake!!!

The camera had come wobbling back over to him by then, and was currently hovering right in front of him, zooming in and out in repetitive, whirring bursts. There was something oddly sexual about it—the crisp sound, the way the zoom lens lengthened and shortened and lengthened again…

[XiErXi]: I’m fucking warning you

[XiErXi]: do you _want_ me to come to the game empty-handed? Hm???

[MrJiong]: no matter whether Xi-er’s hands are empty or not, jiongjiong will lick them well, okay?

[XiErXi]: [head in hands.gif]

[MrJiong]: you’ve been using them to eat that yam, right? Aren’t your fingers a little salty right now?

[XiErXi]: you

[MrJiong]: lick one? Please?

“Aren’t you in the team canteen still?”

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong has already moved~

[MrJiong]: jiongjiong is back in his room now~

Which was quite obviously a broad hint that this horny fucker was dying for a mutual wank. Not that Xi saw anything wrong with playing along for a bit, given how long it’d been since they had a chance to do anything like this.

“I think I can find something far more interesting to lick than just my fingers,” Xi murmured. “Just one sec, I think I might have something handy.”

He ended up deep-throating one of his smaller dildos, the slightly squishy purple one that he’d used the first time they’d done something like this. Luckily, it was still in its auto-cleaning case, tucked away in one of the drawers of the media cabinet in the living room, so it wasn’t long before Xi had it in hand, and was playing with it on camera.

It shone delightfully when properly slicked up, which was one of the reasons Xi had picked it. As for the other reason, it was just the right size to show off his skills with. Large, but not too large. He’d seen what he looked like, how obscene it looked when he started from the tip, sliding more and more of it into his mouth, and if this was all they had time for, he wanted to make the best of it. If he had to go on suffering from the lack of Jiong’s cock, then surely Jiong could suffer a little bit too, watching him lick and slurp his way up and down this long, thick substitute.

[XiErXi]: good?

Typing on your HUD while in motion was one of Xi’s most prized skills. It was more difficult than you’d think to get out something intelligible without pausing or jittering suspiciously.

[MrJiong]: how can you

[MrJiong]: fuck

When Jiong spoke out loud, his voice was unsteady. “Can you fit it all in?”

“Mmr-hmm.”

“Do it.”

The dildo had a nice, heavy base, making it easy for Xi to prop up on the dining table while he crammed his mouth with as much of it as he could. Then, pulling up slowly, all too aware of the focus of the camera on him, Xi swallowed and did it again, striving for more, revelling in the sound of Jiong’s increasingly harsh breaths. “Mnn…”

“Fuck.” A soft, familiar, rhythmic sound accompanied that fervent curse, making it obvious just what Jiong was doing. “Fuck. Look at you.”

“Hnn…”

“Do it again.” Then, as Xi, breathing hard, began to obey: “Touch yourself.”

Xi couldn’t focus enough to do both things properly, but Jiong didn’t seem to mind. “You slut,” he growled. “Look how hard you’ve got, just from cramming that down your throat. Do you even need to be touched to get off?”

“Hghlph—plehhz—”

“You’re not coming till I’m done,” was the merciless answer. “Hands off, right now.”

Thankfully, it wasn’t long before Xi was given the go-ahead again, given sweet permission by Jiong’s low, hoarse voice. “Stand up and wank it right over your plate,” he was told. “You’ll lick it all up afterwards anyway. Might as well make it easier for you, you dirty slut.”

Afterwards, when Xi sagged back down into his chair, having licked clean the streaks he’d left on his plate, Jiong was still a little bit shocked. “I didn’t mean you _had_ to lick it,” he said. “I know you like mine, but I didn’t think… I mean, you’ve never…”

“It’s just come,” Xi said, shrugging, trying to hide how jittery he felt now that his sudden, daft urge to try and pleasantly surprise Jiong had backfired on him. “Doesn’t make much difference, whether it’s mine or someone else’s.” Which was a lie; he knew how Jiong’s tasted now, _knew it_ , and tasting his own come was only going to hold off his craving for Jiong’s for so long. “I shouldn’t keep you for much longer, should I?”

“Xi—”

“Look, I’m just, it’s just that I really want to see you, and I know I can’t, so I’m, I’m crabby even though this is nice, because it’s still not…” And now he sounded like an ungrateful complainer, like someone who nagged and nagged and would never be satisfied. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Jiong said, his voice low and warm and almost disgustingly smug. “It is me we’re talking about, here, right? You’re addicted.”

He didn’t expand on the issue, didn’t say anything about Xi being a dirty slut addicted to his come, but then, with that tone in his voice, he didn’t need to. It was automatically implied, and so brazenly, yet innocently done that if Xi said anything about it, he was quite sure Jiong would tell him in an injured tone that he’d had only meant his precious Xi-er was addicted to his love, or something else just as sickening. All Xi could do was narrow his eyes at the camera that lovingly surveying his dishevelled self and then pointedly look away.

“Can Xi-er give jiongjiong a hug?” The camera whirred closer, its lens zooming in and out. “Please?”

“I’m not hugging my own fucking camera,” Xi muttered, but he did condescend to grab the thing and give it a light pat on the side, followed by a loud, smacking kiss he was sure Jiong couldn’t complain about not hearing. “Happy?”

Jiong chuckled, and the camera wobbled in Xi’s grasp, turning side to side on one axis. Then, when Xi let go of it, it promptly started to try and roll up and down Xi’s front, getting caught on his t-shirt and generally being a total nuisance as he started to clear the table. Annoyed, Xi opened the camera’s settings and stripped Jiong of admin access; bereft, Jiong sighed and sighed and lamented dramatically both in chat and out loud.

By the time Jiong reluctantly signed off, Xi was smiling a little again, like a total fucking idiot, even though none of his concerns had really gone away. _He likes me,_ he kept thinking. _It might just work._

Even though he knew it might all just as easily not work, he couldn’t help but put a little more thought into his so far haphazard plans for the evening he’d blocked out to spend on cheering on Claire and Jiong in their first game in the playoffs.

* * *

The match, in the end, was something of a letdown. Not because Xi had expected it to be some sort of exciting, once-in-a-lifetime event, but because the stadium was packed to the gills with screaming, joyous fans on an entirely different wavelength than him. Xi’s main concerns as he made his way to his shitty-ish seat all revolved around making sure the annoyingly heavy biscuit tins he had in his backpack didn’t get knocked around too much. The FOV fans here, on the other hand…

>> shios: [dying] to see my baby lonjon X

>> domdominates: kekeke lonjon just gonna get roasted, prepare yourself~~

>> yisdom: yeah f***kin right, can’t you see domV rollin in with subs for first game

>> domwife: that lineup’s total BS, shouldn’t it be main squad up?

>> shios: that’s why lonjon will X you all, muah~

>> shios: [dying] to see my baby lonjon X~~

Apparently, this particular section of the stadium was wall to wall rabid Dom-V fans with a sideline of equally rabid fans of Light of the North, a.k.a. L.O.N., a.k.a. the opposing team tonight. Or, technically, since this was L.O.N.’s stadium, the home team whose territory Jiong and company were hoping to make a brazen show on.

It was strangely disorienting seeing Jiong on stage. Or, more correctly, seeing his face highlighted on the projected screen of this particular section of the stadium, and seeing him so carefully posed and made up for the sake of the cameras.

 _Ah_ , Xi thought, feeling a little dazed. _I’ve never seen him look like **that** …_ That being Captain Michael Star, who, as far as Xi remembered, had never quite shown up in front of him. That calm, gentle, _reliable_ smile, that carefully smoothed, unblemished skin, that equally carefully styled, slightly wavy hair, even back in the beginning, none of that had been what Jiong presented to him. He’d taken Xi’s breath away just as himself. A quick glance back at one of the stills Xi had culled from his footage of their first meeting (because of course he’d saved it, all while mocking himself for needing to) even showed that Jiong had had a bit of stubble going at the time, something Xi had been too anxious and horny to notice.

Xi was quite positive that he didn’t know all of Jiong yet, didn’t even know enough to justify trusting him with his heart. But he thought now that he didn’t mind giving it a try, now that he knew for sure that Jiong had come to that first meeting much the way that Xi had: as someone polished, but still very much himself.

* * *

The half hour after the match was over (3-1 in Dom-V’s favour, thank god) saw Xi being partially smothered in the large, nerve-wracking crush of fans that had swarmed the backstage door that led to the dressing rooms for both teams. Partially, because Jiong had messaged him with arrangements and a contact that could get him safely backstage an hour or so before the match, and Xi was relying on said contact’s forceful arm and loud voice to get through.

Well, Xi and five other people were, all of them pinging as either stressed, confused family members or friends making this awkward pilgrimage for the first time, or stressed, but entirely knowledgeable people that were old hands at navigating this sort of crush. Xi would have liked to peg himself as the latter, but even with a pair of sunglasses and what he’d thought to be a low-key outfit, some of the fans out here had somehow recognized him.

Nothing prepared him for the screams, the wild outpouring of emotion. Karaoke fans were rowdy, sure, but it was different when you knew something like a quarter of the crowd by mask alone, and could probably find a mutual connection within six degrees of the rest. What was worse was the fact that they were _cheering him on_ , shouting out unneeded thanks and apologies as if his presence in Jiong’s life had somehow managed to revitalize his gameplay or lend him the extra oomph to step on L.O.N.’s necks, rather than the brutal training regimen and the fact that Dom-V’s changed lineup had finally gained some positive synergy with each other.

“Okay, here we are,” came the cheerful voice of their guide over link, a short, stout woman Xi was quite convinced could bench press twice her own weight. “Just through here, and we’ll be out of the crowd.”

The door ahead of them slid open, revealing a blind corner and a dour-looking young man waiting to sign them in one by one. When it was Xi’s turn, the crowd’s screams reached a fevered pitch, and instead of hurrying inside, he found himself turning around and giving them the wave-and-smile entirely on autopilot. _Good idea, or bad?_ he thought, restraining a flinch at the joyous reaction his brief wave elicited. _Oh well, too late now._

He ducked inside after that, and tried not to think about if passing team staff and crew members were smiling at him, or smiling at just the whole group. He knew one or two of the other family-and-friends set were giving him intrigued once-overs now, but he just didn’t have the extra cycles to give a shit about it.

 _Maybe I should really just keep it to visiting Claire,_ he couldn’t help but think, for the cowardly moment where they all slowed to a stop right outside of THE dressing room, which had access blocked off by an expressionless stadium guard re-checking IDs and searching their bags for what felt like the third time. Then the guard was patting her way through his overlarge backpack, cracking open his biscuit tins with sure, unhurried movements, the tester on her wrist blinking a calm yellow as she went through their contents. “All checks,” she finally said, and then Xi was toting the whole mess along with him into the dressing room, gravitating towards the small knot of activity around Jiong’s tall, familiar form without even thinking about what he was doing.

The moment Jiong spotted him was nothing short of electric. Nothing was said; it was just two more steps forward, and then Jiong’s arm was coming tight around his shoulders, pulling him intimately close. Jiong smelled of sweat and makeup and the strong, sour note of something Xi recognized as a popular energy drink. It should have been—all right, it was maybe a bit disgusting, but Xi couldn’t make himself let go.

“Hi,” he murmured, his face pressed against that solid, familiar chest. “Well done, you.”

“Thank you,” was the low, slightly strangled answer. Followed by the slightly more steady: “I want lots of shortbread. Lots and lots and lots.”

“Well, sweetie, I did bring three tins, it’s just up to you how much hatred you can put up with.”

“Three? All for me?” By now, Jiong had pulled back just enough to stare down into Xi’s eyes, and he was taking advantage of it, putting that sinful, too-earnest gaze to use. “Oh, sweethea—Xi, you shouldn’t have.”

“Good thing I didn’t, then,” Xi said, wriggling out from under the weight of Jiong’s arm. He didn’t know what surprised him less, the fact that Jiong absolutely _would_ try to call him ‘sweetheart’ in that sugary tone in public, under the startled gazes of the rest of the team, or that Jiong would switch to using Xi’s name instead without a hitch when mercilessly pinched. “Claire? This is, um, I brought gifts…?”

Claire, whose scowling form had popped up on the other side of Jiong sometime during their hug, came up to Xi and held out her hands. Only when Xi offered her the largest biscuit tin did she submit to a congratulatory hug. “I’d tell you to miss the next match, but I know it’ll only make him worse,” she muttered. “Ugh. Thanks for coming, I guess.”

Shortly thereafter, the third, unspoken-for tin was cracked open by Mayumi, and for the next half-hour, no one had to be called over to be introduced to Xi; everyone seemed to gravitate in the tin’s direction without really meaning to. In that fashion, Xi met the main squad, the subs, the three energetic trainees that had been allowed (or perhaps required?) to tag along, as well as the hardware minders and the coaches. PR was still wrangling the press, apparently, and management, with their high expectations, never bothered to do more than put in a minute or two of face time after a playoff match, and had thus missed the chance to meet the Captain’s intended spouse.

“I mean, that _is_ what’s happening, right?” Hakon said, around a mouthful of shortbread. Then, when Jiong gave him a quelling look: “I’m just saying, anyone that’ll put up with the kind of press you get, _and_ can cook…”

“Okay, I think that’s our cue to get going, split this all up,” Jiong said, his voice suddenly loud and sure and, for the lack of a better word, captainly. “You all know the drill, one day off, get some rest in, and then it’s back at the team house and back to it. Alright?”

Some time later, he explained that the tortured groans and sighs he’d received as a general response were tradition. “Nothing to worry about,” Jiong said, somewhat unsteadily. “It’s… ’s identity at this point, skating a bit during the regular season and going in hard at—the—hn, in playoffs…”

Xi, crouched down between his lover’s parted knees, let out an encouraging hum. They were tucked away in the back compartment of the team bus, waiting for the return of half the team from their scavenging of the charge station’s convenience store, and Jiong had swept the tiny almost-room for cameras and locker the door behind them almost as soon as the bus crawled to a halt. They’d pounced on each other then, and Xi had only won the struggle of who got to be the one doing the touching because he’d sat on his arse watching all four games while Jiong had played three of them, and was consequently too tired to resist. “Tell me more?”

“I—I can’t, I can’t fucking think of…” Jiong’s voice was lovely like this, low and tight, hoarse with frustration. “Just fucking take it all in.”

Xi, smirking inwardly, devoted the next few minutes to teasing, to getting Jiong’s cock properly wet. Only then did he deign to swallow it all the way down, all while thinking, muzzily, that it really was a shame there wasn’t time for more. Much as he’d been craving the taste of Jiong’s come, he’d also really wanted to feel the warmth of it deep in his arse.

This was good enough, though. Jiong’s big, hard hand on the back of his head, forcing him to take it, and Jiong’s harsh, ragged breaths as he thrust in and out and in again, too deep one moment and then not deep enough.

Xi didn’t know just when he’d reached down to rub himself. He only realized he was doing it well after Jiong had come, when he found himself rutting into his own hand while pressing his face against Jiong’s exposed crotch. It was horribly embarrassing, but not so much so that Xi didn’t continue, already most of the way to orgasm just from the musky smell.

Afterwards, they stayed like that for a moment, Xi flushed and panting and not at all interested in getting back onto his unsteady feet. That Jiong’s hand was still on his head, stroking gently through his hair, only intensified his embarrassment, because it felt—it felt _so_ good, good enough that it was unnerving, and that it had to be really obvious.

“All done?” Jiong’s voice, still a little hoarse, sounded almost unspeakably fond. “Need a hand up?”

“Hmph,” was all Xi could bear to say, even as he accepted the help. “You—don’t _do_ that, I’m—they’ll be back any moment, we can’t just keep—mmh…”

Somehow, they managed to stop groping and kissing each other just before the bus lurched back into motion. Tidying up was made more difficult by their cramped, slightly rattling surroundings, but they managed that too. Even the walk of shame wasn’t anything to write home about, given that Xi’s too-casual, pointedly delayed exit from the bathroom showed him that everyone was clustered near the front of the bus and arguing vociferously over whose bets had come out on top in the event of an unexpectedly narrow tiebreaker between two hapless playoff teams.

“All I’m saying is,” one of the players said, her nondescript appearance running counter to the sheer, piercing volume of her voice, “if you look at the numbers—”

“The numbers mean fuck all, An,” retorted another player. “It’s win or loss, that’s the main thing, and you know it.”

“Just because _you_ never bother trying to peg the final stats doesn’t mean—”

“More tradition, I’m guessing?” Xi murmured, as he slid into the seat beside Jiong.

“Usually I wish it wasn’t,” was Jiong’s low, wicked response. “Want to bet they couldn’t hear you over themselves?”

A hard pinch was all the answer that sort of shameless question deserved. That said pinch was followed by only a slight, fond smile and the slow, inexorable settling of Jiong’s arm around his shoulders felt a little surprising still, even though Xi had thought he was used to things with Jiong being just like this: petty frustrations floating by in a sea of sugary, frighteningly satisfying moments.

 _It won’t always be this easy,_ he couldn’t help but think. _It can’t._ But that didn’t dim the slightly foolish smile on Xi’s face, or make him feel any less comfortable. He’d started out determined to enjoy this relationship while it lasted, but now he was beyond it, simply just enjoying it as it was.

 _I won’t regret this,_ Xi thought. _I refuse to._ And then, just because he could, he snuggled a little closer to Jiong, the better to admire the slightly blank expression his lover got while dozing off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think ;D. Extras are a definite possibility, just one in the far future since I've got a bunch of other projects going at the moment.

**Author's Note:**

> Questions, corrections, suggestions and other feedback all welcome <3\. Please note that spelling errors in the chat messages are intentional; if you spot one that makes things confusing in a way that doesn't seem intentional, I want to know.


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